Something to Do On the Weekend
by MyNoseAgreesWithMe
Summary: After Aincrad was cleared with the help of two Pokemon Trainers, Kirito's AI daughter decides to summon them into ALFheim to rescue her mommy - and the Land of Fairies will never be quite the same. This is the second main installment of my crossover "Tuesday-verse," and makes the most sense if you have read the first (which can be found on my profile). Complete; posting sequel.
1. Prologue

**Prologue: A Friend In Need**

* * *

It had been two months and thirteen days since Sword Art Online had been cleared, and Yui was very worried about her Daddy. After he had heard that Mommy and 300 others hadn't woken up, he had tried logging back in with his NerveGear to try and find her, and when that didn't work he had started repeatedly visiting her hospital room as soon as his freedom was restored. Unfortunately, the hospital was on its own private server – which meant she was unable to access the information about her Mommy's IP usage without the proper security credentials.

Normally, that wouldn't have been a problem, but in her current state Yui could not spare the processing power to try and properly replicate those credentials. Having been originally designed to operate behind the Cardinal System's own antivirus firewalls, she herself had no defense against the viruses and malware that denizens of the Internet seemed to love spreading, but her and Pina's unique blend of computer energy and life energy meant that she had to inoculate herself against them over an extended period of time instead of having a one-time data dump. Not only that, but she was also busy trying to establish a communications line with Aunt Serena's navigational tablet, and the nuances of their universe's encryption seemed to vary from time to time (due to a curious Giratina _twang_ ing at the connection as it passed through the Distortion World, though Yui didn't know that).

Still, living in a virtual sandbox on Kazuto's computer had allowed her to meet her Aunt Suguha, Grandma Midori, and Grandpa Minetaka – who, while initially skeptical about how real she was, were convinced when they heard the affection in Kazuto's voice and saw the images she had extracted from her memories of them as a family. One time, when Daddy was visiting Mommy at the hospital, she had even helped Aunt Sugu move past the 'celebrity crush' she had developed on Daddy during his time in the game and start seeing him as an older brother again.

After this last visit, though, Daddy's mental health seemed dangerously close to problematic. Not only had he lost his spar with Aunt Sugu thanks to his still-recovering muscles, but he had also found out that in the real world Mommy was in an arranged engagement with a businessman that Daddy called 'that creep Sugou.' But that was wrong – Mommy and Daddy were supposed to marry each other again! She wished she had an actual body so that she could hug her Daddy and make him feel better, but at least Aunt Sugu was there to help physically comfort him where she couldn't.

The biggest high point of those two months had come the next morning, after Daddy had received an e-mail from Mr. Agil and rushed off to meet him at his café. After two months of trying, she had finally managed to establish a connection to Aunt Serena's tablet, which meant that once Daddy got back they could finally all talk to each other again. Right now, it said her traveling group was at a place called Snowbelle City – which, according to the Ranger Database's tracking data, was the eighth town she had visited with an officially recognized Pokémon Gym.

Curious about exactly what a Pokémon Gym was, Yui spent the next hour or so browsing the Encyclopedia program of Serena's tablet to familiarize herself with the topic. She had just moved on to the other two major career pathways for Trainers (Contest Coordinators and Showcase Performers) when Kazuto came back in, face looking the most determined she had ever seen. He plopped a rectangular case on the desk and rummaged around under his bed, pulling out his old NerveGear and plugging it back in.

 _"What's going on, Daddy?_ " she asked through the computer speakers. _"Is that a new game?"_

Kazuto paused just after he had inserted the disk into his computer. "Yeah, it's a game called ALFheim Online that Agil – I mean Andrew – let me borrow. It's a long shot, but I think this may help us rescue Asuna."

Yui frowned – or at least she would have if she had been generating an avatar on-screen. _"Wait a minute, you think Mommy's stuck in that game now?"_

Kirito nodded. "Take a look at this picture. It was taken in-game." He dragged the image from Agil's e-mail through an antivirus scanner before dropping it in her virtual sandbox.

Yui took one look at the photo, which looked very much like Asuna with wings in a giant birdcage, and her mind was made up. _"Yup, that's Mommy all right. Are we gonna go inside and rescue her?"_

"We sure are." Kirito told her determinedly. "So finish up with whatever you were doing while I run through setup, then return to the NerveGear storage so I can bring you into ALFheim." He pulled the helmet onto his head and laid down on the bed. "Link, start!"

Yui quickly exited out of the still-open Kalos Encyclopedia, and she was getting ready to terminate the connection entirely when an idea struck her. If she was going to let Daddy talk to Uncle Satoshi and Aunt Serena when he came back, why not let them do it in-game where they could help him find Mommy too?

Navigating to the Emergency Contact function, she triggered the activation protocol and waited for a response.

* * *

Omake: Niche Telemarketing

* * *

After a few seconds of ringing, Yui heard a voice on the other end of the line. _"Thank you for calling Plot Devices, Inc. Your time is very important to us, so please remain calm as we walk you through our very simple process. If your wise old mentor has turned out to be secretly evil and you need a way to contain him, select Option 1. If your insurance is overdue and you need an extension on your payment deadline, select Option 2. If the universe has just been destroyed and you need to activate a total timeline reset, select Option 3. If your stupid next-door neighbor won't stop singing in the shower…"_

Yui was very confused. She just wanted to talk to Ash and Serena so that they could come into ALFheim and help Daddy find Mommy, not talk to an automated telemarketer! And to top it all off, some of the scenarios outlined by the recording had an almost infinitesimal probability of ever occurring…

 _"…If your adoptive mother has been trapped in a virtual birdcage by an evil fiancé attempting mind-control experiments, thus being prevented from reuniting with your adoptive father who is supposed to be her real fiancé, and you need to set her free, select Option 19. If you want to contact friends from in another dimension so that you can use up two whole days trying to free her manually, select Option 20. If your Excelsior!-brand hot dogs have convicted you of not being a True Believer and you wish for a way to remedy that problem…"_

Yui selected Option 19 as soon as she registered what it had said, and Asuna suddenly appeared in Kazuto's room with a sharp _pop_. Oddly, though, she still had the pointy ears and gossamer-like wings from the photo, and she looked around the room curiously. "Wait a minute – what's going on? I thought Oberon said I couldn't get out!" Her gaze landed on the bed, and she suddenly gasped. "Is that you, Kirito?"

Yui cheered wildly. _"Yay, it worked – you're back, Mommy!"_ She quickly connected to Kazuto's NerveGear and activated the auto-disconnect feature, logging him out of the character creation screen.

"What was that for, Yui?" he groaned, sitting up. "This better be important…" His eyes widened when they spotted Asuna sitting on the edge of the bed, and he ripped the helmet off. "But – but how?"

Before anyone could say anything, an automated voice blared from the computer speakers. [Thank you for purchasing our deluxe Deus Ex Machina package. The purchase price of any remaining storytelling potential or logical event progression will be billed to you shortly. Have a nice day!]

"Okay, I guess that answers that question – but we've still gotta figure out what to do about those wings now…"


	2. Chapter 1

**.**

 **A Reuniting of Friends**

(Ep 16 Part 1)

* * *

The past couple of months since Ash and Serena returned from Sword Art Online had gone relatively well, all things considered. Even though the two weeks' delay they had suffered meant that they had to rush to qualify Serena for the Master-class Showcase (and leave Goodra behind to re-hydrate the now not-so-wet wetlands where he had originally lived after Team Rocket had drained them), the new routines she had devised based on her time in-game clinched her victory in the lower-level competitions.

She and Ash had also each acquired a new Pokémon: for him, a Noibat (now Noivern) that he had hatched from an egg, and for her, an Eevee (now Sylveon) that she had met when it saw her practicing in a field. Sylveon had actually evolved at a party that the Showcase MC had hosted a couple of weeks after Serena acquired her, which was also the location of Ash and Serena's first real argument. Ash had accepted Miette's offer to let him escort her, assuming that Eevee would be more comfortable if Clemont and Bunnelby accompanied her and Serena – and the resulting jealousy and annoyance from seeing her rival trying to put the moves on _her_ boyfriend, even in jest, clouded Serena's thinking and bled over their bond, coloring his thoughts slightly as well.

That was one downside of having a mental link like that; neither of them was able to enjoy themselves for the majority of the party, especially when the way it was organized prevented them from being able to dance with each other. They had argued with each other all afternoon, even though nobody else was able to hear them, and it wasn't until they were paired up together in a tag-team battle and reluctantly decided to call a truce for the extent of the battle that they realized how stupid they had both been acting. Eevee, sensing the feeling of reconciliation between her trainer and her trainer's boyfriend, drew on that feeling for strength, triggering her evolution into Sylveon.

Fletchinder was now a Talonflame, having evolved during a battle against a local Moltres, and Frogadier had become a Greninja (for real this time) during another meeting with Sanpei. Unfortunately, this had taken place after Ash's Gym Battle against Olympia, which meant that he didn't have Greninja's Dark-typing available to help him in the battle. He still won, though, and afterwards she even offered Serena an apprenticeship at her Gym. Serena refused, though, since neither she nor Ash considered a sedentary life appealing at that point.

She also refused Palermo's offer to coach her to become the next Kalos Queen, having sensed Aria's apprehension at what she would do if overthrown and tailoring her performance to receive a slightly smaller portion of the votes than the current Queen. After all, half the fun of her own journey had come from trying new things with Ash and her other friends, and she was sure she could find something else that she enjoyed just as much. (Plus, being able to manipulate the system like that by sensing the crowd's likes/dislikes and acting accordingly just felt like cheating to her.)

Right now, the group was in Snowbelle City waiting for Wulfric to return from bed rest so that Ash could challenge him. The Gym Leader had come down with a moderate illness, very similar to the one Serena had feared that Ash would catch several days before (when that punk-rocker kid with the headbanging Pikachu had tried to challenge him), and he would not be accepting challenges for another couple of days; in response, they had decided to take a couple of days off to relax. Clemont was currently talking with Korrina on one of the Center's videophones while Bonnie worked on an Arts and Crafts project nearby, and Ash and Serena were out in the woods just enjoying each other's company.

Serena appreciated the snow for two reasons: one, the light coating dusting everything around gave the forest a majestic appearance, and two, the chill that accompanied it gave her an excuse to cuddle with her boyfriend. Nature had fallen almost silent, the only audible sounds that of their breathing, the soft whistle of the wind through the trees, and the incessant high-pitched beeping of her electronic Kalos Guidebook.

"Izzat some kinda emergency news update or somethin'?" Ash mumbled lethargically as she dug through her pockets to extract it.

A brief sensation of fond amusement flashed across their bond as she finally managed to pull it out. "How should I know, silly? I haven't looked yet." She opened it up, only to see a dialog box labeled [Incoming Communication from IP Address SAO.1. 001. Do you wish to accept?]

"Is that…"

"Only one way to find out!" She pressed the [Yes] button, turning her Guidebook's speaker volume up to the maximum. "This is Serena Paschall; to who am I speaking?"

 _"Actually, that would be 'to whom'."_ a childish voice answered from the other end. _"And it's me, Yui!"_

Ash waved at the screen, forgetting that it was an audio-only connection. "Hey there, Yui! How's it going?"

 _"That's actually why I'm calling."_ Yui replied, voice becoming serious. _"Mommy didn't wake up when everybody else did, and Daddy and I just found out that she got stuck in another game called ALFheim Online. We were just getting ready to go rescue her – do you want to come help us?"_

"Hold on a moment… we're not going to get trapped again ourselves, are we?" Serena asked worriedly.

 _"Don't worry, it's been out for months and nobody new has been trapped during that time."_

As Yui outlined the situation, Serena could feel Ash's resolve growing stronger. And to be honest, she completely agreed with him – some of their friends needed help, and they had the capacity to do so, so not helping would be a waste of their abilities. She began to Calm her Mind, gathering energy for the Teleportation back to Lumiose City where Clemont had left the helmets.

"All right then, what do we need to do?" Ash said, sensing her efforts and adding his own support to the mix.

 _"Log into your old accounts and wait for me to establish the connection."_ Yui told them. _"After that, you should appear in-game at Daddy's location."_

"Got it." A pillar of blue-white light engulfed Ash, Pikachu, and Serena, and they reappeared up on the observation deck of Prism Tower. They ran down to Clemont's lab, grateful to find out that the cots hadn't been moved since the Incident of two months ago. After getting Pikachu's permission, they recalled him to his Pokéball and laid down on the cots and re-donned the NERVEGEAR helmets.

"Link, start!"

* * *

This time, instead of being dumped directly into the game, Ash and Serena found themselves facing a character-creation screen, where they were each instructed to choose one of the nine Fairy races available for the game. Serena, as a nod to her time performing in Showcases, chose the musically-inclined Pooka race, and Ash decided to honor his Greninja's recent evolution by choosing the water-themed Undines. He was a bit disappointed that his avatar would have blue hair, but at least their facial features and physical builds were still automatically made to match their real-world counterparts.

As the remaining seven racial representations swirled around them in a vortex of light, a mechanized voice announced that the two of them would now be transported to their respective hometowns. The ground vanished beneath their feet and an odd feeling sprouted between their shoulder blades, almost like an itch that they just couldn't scratch, as everything around them faded to white. Suddenly, just before they were pulled away from each other, a dark void opened up beneath them and they plummeted through surrounded by the echo of a childish giggle.

They approached the ground at high speed, headed for an area devoid of foliage, and Serena instinctively slowed their fall so that they touched down silently. Several feet away, they could see Kirito's back with Yui's face peeking over his shoulder. She subtly put a finger to her lips and winked at them before he pulled back and looked her in the eyes.

"Do you have any idea what's going on, Yui? I still have all my SAO skill data, but all the items except your storage crystal seem to be glitched out."

Yui closed her eyes for a few seconds, before answering in a dejected voice. "Aw... Ms. Cardinal doesn't remember who I am! That means this game must be using an adapted copy of SAO's game engine from back when I was still just a program." She opened her eyes again. "But the similarities in save formats means that all your skills from SAO were transferred here, which means your stats are extremely high. It's also why I was able to take this form when I first arrived here. You should probably delete the items so that the game doesn't try and ban you for hacking, though."

Kirito sighed, hating to delete things that could have been valuable mementos of his time with Asuna, but did so anyways. As he did, Yui raised her voice so that Ash and Serena could hear. "But don't worry – since your Pokémon are stored in the same way I was, you won't have to delete them!"

Kirito turned around in surprise. "Ash? Serena? What are you two doing here?"

"Yui brought us here to help you save Asuna!" Ash explained, walking forward to knock fists with him (which Kirito did automatically, his brain still trying to catch up). "Speaking of Yui, what do you mean by 'able to take this form?' Were you supposed to look different here or something?"

Yui nodded. "Since I'm not using a NerveGear or an Amusphere, Ms. Cardinal knows I'm not a player, but she also knows I'm not a regular NPC either. Instead, she classified me as a Navigation Pixie and gave me the system access common to that character class. This is what she thinks I look like!" There was a flash of white light, which then faded to reveal that Yui had shrunk down to the size of a Flabébé and was now wearing a dress that looked like it was made out of pink flower petals.

"…Wow, you're a lot smaller now." Ash remarked, only for Serena to whack his head lightly.

"Congratulations, Captain Obvious." she said teasingly. "What else have you got to tell us, the fact that all of us have wings now?"

Her boyfriend did an exaggerated double take. "Wait, we _do_?" He made a show of checking over his shoulder to see his own (which, coincidentally, looked like two halves of Ash-Greninja's giant Water Shuriken). "Oh, cool – Greninja and I match now! I wonder how they work, though…"

Yui started explaining something about a Flight Controller, but Ash had already tuned her out, activating his Aura Vision to see how the wings connected to the virtual framework of his avatar. He spent a few seconds sending small bursts of Aura to each of his muscles in that area, figuring out which ones generated reactions in his wings. Eventually, he put together an idea of which muscles pulled the wings in which direction and passed on the information to Serena. As they focused on moving those muscles, drawing on the flying lessons Hawlucha and Talonflame had given to Noibat, they felt themselves rising off the ground.

The more they practiced, the easier it became – though Kirito, they noticed, was having a somewhat harder time trying to use the Controller. He still seemed to consider it easier than other flight simulator games he had played, though, and he soon pronounced himself sufficiently skilled to fly to the nearest town. Landing and stretching, he decided to test out his sword.

"Man, those stats are lousy." he remarked, tracing through the movements of a multi-strike Sword Skill. "I'm gonna have to get a better weapon once we get to town. Where is the nearest town, anyway?"

Yui went silent as she accessed the Map data. "It's called Swilvane, home of the Sylph race, and it's slightly west of here. There is also a group of three players hunting another off to the east, and that fourth player is a Sylph."

Kirito sheathed his sword again. "Well, I guess it wouldn't hurt to have a native guide who knows where they're going. Plus, three against one hardly seems fair. Lead the way, Yui!"

Yui nodded, taking off from his shoulder. "You got it, Daddy!"

Before Ash took off after them, he nudged Serena gently in the ribs with his elbow. "See, I'm not the only one with a hero complex here."

Serena followed him, voice indignant. "I never said you had a hero complex!"

Ash turned around to face her, giving her that goofy grin she could never stay mad at. "But you were thinking it. I could hear you."

 _He's got me there…_ she sighed, mentally holding him in place long enough that she could overtake and pass him. She ignored his shouts of protest, unsurprised when a wall of Aura shimmered into place in front of her and slowed her down in turn.

She retaliated by holding his wings flat so that he couldn't flap them, but he just created an Aura Platform under his feet and threw the resulting Water Shuriken at her, a new one appearing to replace it and splitting into wings again. Just before it hit, she shifted her Psychic grip on it to break it in half again – and each half curved around like a boomerang, headed back for their original thrower.

Ash managed to catch the first one, going into a spin to throw it back, but the second hit him just after he released it. Serena was too busy laughing at him to dodge, and soon she was soaked as well.

The wind quickly dried them off, though, and they caught up to Kirito just as the sounds of combat came into hearing. "…Do you think he knows how to stop?" Ash asked, barely audible over the sound of the wind.

His question was answered when the Spriggan swordsman failed to slow down in time, crashing through the treetops and slamming into the ground.

Ash and Serena both winced. "Ooh, that's gonna leave a mark." Following at a more sedate pace, the two of them touched down under the cover of a Notice-Me-Not and made their way into the small clearing to watch the confrontation.

* * *

Omake: Fairy Flight

* * *

As Ash and Serena practiced their Voluntary Flight skills, Sylveon discreetly let herself out of her Pokéball. After all, if what she had heard about this being a land of fairies was true, she should feel right at home here.

With everybody else flying, though, all she really felt was left out, and so she wracked her brains for a solution. They all seemed to be using specialized appendages to fly, so maybe she could do something with _her_ specialized appendages. But how to make that work…

Flapping her ribbon-like feelers up and down didn't seem to do anything, whether she had them extended all the way or folded into sheets. So how else did things fly? She couldn't run fast enough to gain lift like those fixed-wing planes she had heard about back when she still routinely cowered in the corner, afraid to socialize, but what was that other kind of flying machine Trainers used again? Hetaclopters or something like that?

After a few seconds of thinking, she still couldn't remember the name. She did remember that they worked by spinning long flat pieces of metal in circles, though, and so she tried to do the same thing with her feelers. The first few times, it didn't work – but then it clicked, and she started rising up into the air slowly.

The logical part of her brain protested that it still shouldn't work, that her feelers should be getting irreparably tangled with each other, but she decided to listen to the part that whispered _video game logic_ instead.

 _I wonder why Pokémon like Ninetales never do this_ , she thought as she soared above the foliage.

"Because of copyright violations." a blue Sandslash-esque creature wearing a red neckscarf-bandana, running shoes, and an almost excessive amount of sports tape told her from its perch on the wing of a yellow biplane. "My buddy there's already got the whole 'flying fox' thing covered."

The biplane and its two occupants flew away, leaving Sylveon very confused.

 **A/N: And so the team of SatoSere descended upon Alfheim, plunging it into chaos from which it would never recover...**

 **Welp, there's the reunion. If Kirito's response seemed somewhat underwhelming, just chalk it up to his acceptance of Ash's weirdness magnetism. The effects of 'For Want Of A Nail' begin next chapter, though events do still run somewhat parallel to the 'Stations of the Canon' until later in their adventure. I will give you a hint to spark your curiosity, though: it involves a detail that was mentioned in the prologue and a dosage of common sense.**

 **As of yet, this story does not have a cover image (my MS Paint cut-and-paste skills are not quite enough to transform either Trainer into an ALFheim fairy), so if anyone with artistic ability wants to try their hand at drawing/photoshopping one, I would be more than willing to give you credit. The same is retroactively true for the first Tuesday-verse installment - even if I do not choose to replace its current cover image, I can still post links on my profile.**

 **Thank you for reading, and remember: If you can't steal the pie, eat Steve.**


	3. Chapter 2

**Confrontation and Identification**

(Ep 16 Part 2/17 Part 1)

* * *

For the most part, the emotions of the four other players present varied quite wildly from each other. The Sylph girl, who had her katana hoisted over her head, was filled with a resolve to not surrender; the leader of the attacking squadron had an attitude of _I don't have anything against you – it's just business_ ; and the other two seemed to have an almost sadistic anticipation at the prospect of fighting a female opponent.

The one common factor to all of their thoughts was surprise. After all, a Spriggan equipped with nothing but starter gear had just crash-landed in the middle of a fight near Sylph territory, and he seemed much more concerned with the landing itself than the fact that he was surrounded by hostile players.

Kirito's next words only reinforced their confusion. "Hold on, since when is three big guys against one girl a fair fight? That's just _so_ uncool."

The two subordinate members of the squad, eager to let out their pent-up aggression, switched their target to him. "You askin' to die, noob?" one challenged him. When he just stood there smirking, the Salamander tightened his grip on his lance and his attitude turned predatory. "Your funeral, then." He charged at Kirito, his partner hanging back to prepare his own attack.

His surprise skyrocketed to triple its initial level when Kirito used his transferred Martial Arts skill (renamed Unarmed Combat in ALFheim) to activate Parry (aka Guard) and catch the tip of the lance bare-handed, halting its momentum completely. His aerial position then worked against him, giving him nothing to brace himself against as Kirito threw him backwards into his companion, the collision disorienting both of them.

 _Heck yeah!_ Kirito thought as the adrenaline rush of battle started flowing again. He rotated his shoulders a few times to warm up the muscles, turning to face the Salamanders' former quarry. "You mind if I clean up here? It's been ages since I've been able to really let loose."

The Sylph shook her head incredulously. "If you really think you can do that, then go ahead. It's not like they were gonna let you just walk away after this…"

Kirito grinned and took a stance that was quite familiar to him after his years in SAO. As he did so, Serena caught a brief flash of _could that be – no, it's probably just a coincidence_ from the Sylph. He then kicked off, his massive Speed stat combined with his almost-Mastered Sprint skill blurring him into invisibility before he reappeared several meters past the Salamanders.

 _"I'd give that an 8.5/10."_ Pikachu remarked from within his Inventory Slot, the custom settings on Ash's helmet having transferred him there from the Pokéball as soon as they logged into the game. _"I know he can't help it if his scabbard is in the wrong place, but it's less dramatic if you don't sheath your sword just before the damage triggers."_ Just as he said that, the Salamander on the left erupted into flames and faded into a Remain Light, the energy of an impending Teleportation beginning to pool around him.

Kirito turned around, still grinning, and faced the other two Salamanders down. "All right, who's next?" Catching the growl from the one on the ground, Kirito nodded in his direction. "Okay, you then." Since Sprint was still on cooldown, this time he was slow enough for the Sylph to track – and even so, his reaction speed was still surprisingly fast, perhaps even slightly familiar…

The second Salamander erupted in flames, and Kirito rotated his head to address the leader. "How about you, Mister? Care to test your blade against mine?"

Thankfully, Kagemune (the name had flashed through his mind automatically as Kirito had addressed him as 'mister') knew when to bluff and when to fold. "No thanks. My Magic skill is almost at 900, and I'd rather not suffer the Death Penalty now."

Kirito chuckled. "Well, at least you're honest about it. I won't attack you if you don't attack me, but there's still the matter of this damsel whose honor you have maligned by ganging up on her. How 'bout it? You still wanna take him on yourself?"

The Sylph couldn't help but marvel at his audacity – both how nonchalantly he spoke to the two of them and the way he shamelessly mixed highbrow speech and informal vernacular. "You're safe for now." she told Kagemune, lowering her katana with a sigh. "But next time, I'll be sure to beat you."

The Salamander chuckled, his answer making it clear that he didn't think he could face her one-on-one. "Then next time I'll make sure to bring more friends." he told her, beginning to ascend.

 _And who's to say she won't have more friends too?_ a voice asked in his head, causing him to look down and almost lose control of his flight in surprise. Not only were the Sylph and Spriggan still there, but now he could see an Undine and a Pooka in the clearing as well. He congratulated himself again on choosing a tactical withdrawal over combat, pushing his wings to give himself more speed.

* * *

Kirito was about to say something, but Serena sent a wave of _it's not safe to talk yet_ in his direction, having calculated the time required for each Remain Light to achieve the energy density necessary to Teleport it to its hometown. After several more seconds, the two lights faded and the Sylph relaxed slightly. "All right, we're safe to talk now that their Remain Lights are gone." she told Kirito. "So what next? You want fear, gratitude, some kind of reward?" She raised her sword again. "Or maybe you want to fight me now, is that it?"

Kirito chuckled internally, remembering when Asuna had a similar attitude towards people. Lighthearted joking had helped her relax back then, so maybe it'd help break the ice now. He crossed his arms, pretending to be affronted. "Hold on, what are you talking about? Isn't this one of those whole 'knight in shining armor saves the princess' scenarios? I thought the next line in the script would be 'the princess bursts into tears and throws her arms around the knight gratefully'…"

The Sylph warrior scoffed, her eyebrow twitching. "As if!"

"You know, she's right." Serena told him, walking out from behind her alongside Ash. "I don't think your own 'noble lady' would take too kindly to that."

"Yep!" Yui chimed in from Kirito's pocket. "Only me and Mommy get to hug Daddy!"

The Sylph's emotion turned to surprise again, especially after she heard an invisible voice calling the odd Spriggan 'Daddy.' Narrowing her eyes, she saw a small figure dart from his pocket and land on his shoulder, and they widened again. "No way!" she exclaimed, rushing forward to get a closer look. "Is that one of those private Nav pixies?"

"Ehh, kinda…" Kirito admitted, scratching the back of his head nervously. "Her name's Yui."

Whatever he expected her to say next, her response was not it. "Wait a minute – is that you, Kazuto?"

"How do you know my real name?" Kirito demanded, stepping back defensively.

"It'd be kind of hard for me _not_ to!" she answered. "An AI named Yui who calls you 'Daddy,' that stance you used during sparring yesterday – I'd have to be blind to miss it!"

" _Suguha?_ " Kirito asked, dumbfounded. "But I thought you hated VRMMOs, especially after I got trapped in SAO…"

Suguha sat down with a _thump_. "I did, but I also got curious about what you liked so much about them, so I asked my classmate to suggest one that was a little easier to play for short sessions. He introduced me to ALFheim, and I liked the flight engine and the chance to actually use my kendo skills enough that I just kept playing. I even won a tournament here a couple of months before you got back!"

Kirito smiled, sitting down next to her and ruffling her hair (what little wasn't in her ponytail, anyways). "Aw, it looks like my little sister's growing up. Sorry I couldn't be there to see it, though. By the way, this is Ash and Serena. They're some of my friends from back in SAO." He turned his head to face the two of them. "Are you still using the same usernames, or did you choose new ones for this game?"

Ash shook his head. "Nope, still 'Satoshi' and 'Serena.' I've been wondering, though, how did Yui teleport us to where you were if her GM access was restricted to whatever Navigation Pixies have?"

"Oh, that's easy!" Yui piped up. "I linked your initial location parameters to his before I entered the game myself, which meant I still had the system authority to do so. That also explains why Daddy appeared here instead of the Spriggan hometown – since he was logging in from an IP address that was already connected, it messed up his own location data. By the way, I guess you are allowed to hug Daddy, Aunt Leafa."

"Leafa? I thought her name was Suguha?" Serena asked, confused, before it clicked. "Oh wait, I forgot about the whole 'most people don't use their real names online' thing. I understand now."

Kirito smiled. "Whatever the case, I'm glad I started out this game surrounded by people I can trust. By the way, Sugu, would you mind showing the four of us the fastest way to the big tree everybody here is so excited about? We think Asuna might be trapped up on top, and having someone around who knows the terrain would be a big help."

For a few seconds, the Sylph swordswoman thought he was joking. A look at their faces assured her that they were being serious, though, and she nodded resolutely. "Okay, I'll do it. There's a neutral town slightly to the north of here where we can get you better equipment."

"But why not Swilvane? Yui said that was closer…" Kirito asked as she stood back to her feet.

Leafa turned around to face him, mirth in her eyes and a look of mock horror on her face. "Oh my gosh, has my brother gone crazy? To even suggest something dangerous like that…" At his look of confusion, she explained. "Swilvane is in Sylph territory, which means you can't attack anyone there – but they can attack you."

"And we've got a Sylph escort." Kirito countered. "As long as we don't cause trouble, I think we should be safe."

"If you say so…" Leafa conceded, shaking her head. "All right then, let's fly!" She flexed her wings and prepared to take off, only to pause when Kirito asked her another question.

"Wait a minute, why aren't you using the Flight Controller?"

Leafa blinked. "You're saying you can't fly without it?"

"Well, to be fair, he only logged in about half an hour or so ago." Ash told her. "Think of it this way: if you teach him, you've got something else you can tease him about. Serena and I figured it out already, but we're just awesome like that." Suddenly, his head jerked and he rubbed the back of it tenderly. "Ouch."

"I know you don't really mean it, but I don't like it when you put others down in order to brag." Serena lectured him. "Sorry you had to hear that, Leafa."

"Don't worry." Kirito's sister reassured her. "Compared to the one-upmanship contests between the boys at my school, something like that is pretty much nothing."

Kirito himself just stood there, blinking. "Um, hello? Didn't you say there was gonna be a flying lesson?"

"Oh, right. Turn around, but don't access your controller." When he did so, Leafa placed her hand on his back underneath the sigil in the center of his wings. "You feel where my hand is? Now imagine virtual bones and muscles extending out into the wings, and see if you can get them to move."

After a few seconds of intense concentration, Kirito's wings began vibrating. "There you go, just like that! Now try it again, only harder!" As they picked up speed, a mischievous idea took root in his sister's mind.

"All right, now what?" he asked once he felt they were moving fast enough.

"Well, like they say, sometimes you gotta run before you can walk!" she replied, grunting the last word as she pushed hard on the center of his back.

"You've never even seen that movieeeeeee…" he yelled as his avatar was launched through the foliage and shot up into the sky. This was followed by several seconds of silence, after which Leafa (and Yui, who had fallen off his shoulder) ascended to check on him. "C'mon, Sis – this isn't funny!" he called as they came into view and started laughing at his corkscrewing attempt at flight. "How do I make it stop?"

Serena decided to oblige, grabbing hold of him in a Psychic grip until he managed to calm his wings down and begin hovering. They landed on a nearby cliff so as not to exceed the game's Flight Timer, and after that, it took him about 10 minutes of on-and-off practice to become respectably proficient in Voluntary Flight.

* * *

"Okay, it looks like you've got the hang of it now!" Leafa congratulated him, still chuckling. "Now follow me! You might want to take it slow though, since you're still learning."

As she took off towards Swilvane, Kirito set himself on a course to intercept her path and fell into place just behind her. "I don't know…" he said teasingly, once again comfortable enough to joke. "It wouldn't reflect too highly on me if I let my little sister show me up."

Leafa smirked impishly back at him. "All right then – see if you can keep up, but don't say I didn't warn you…" With a burst of energy, she shot off ahead fast enough to leave a miniature wave of displaced air in her wake.

Kirito matched her speed easily, waving jauntily at her as she looked back. "Is this really the best you can do? I've seen you move faster during a kendo match!"

She narrowed her eyes. "Oh, it's on." She quickly accelerated to the maximum Speed allowable by the system, expecting the mental energy necessary to maintain that speed to be too much for her brother.

Surprisingly, the three of them were able to keep up with her just fine – though when she thought about it, the fact that they were all SAO survivors meant that it shouldn't have been so surprising. Yui, on the other hand, had much less mass and so experienced a much higher wind resistance, which meant she had to land in Kirito's pocket again if she didn't want to fall behind.

"Hey look, we made it!" Ash interrupted, pointing to the town ahead.

"All right, we're gonna land at the base of the central tower." Leafa instructed them as they weaved through the hanging cables and elevated walkways that spanned the town.

Serena nodded. "Got it." She began mentally running through the steps necessary for a safe landing, only to pause when she sensed panic growing in Kirito's mind.

Leafa realized it at the exact same time. "I never taught you how to land at high speed, did I?" she asked apprehensively.

"No, you didn't!" her brother yelled back, temporarily forgetting how to work his wings in his distress.

"Whoops. I guess it's too late now, isn't it? Sorry bro, but you're on your own." She immediately cut back her speed, angling herself so she would land just short of the gardens at the tower's foot.

Kirito's yell as he plummeted toward those same gardens at high speed was audible throughout the entire town. "YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING MEEEEEEEEE!"

* * *

Omake: Classification: Game Breaker

* * *

Leafa smirked impishly back at her brother. "All right then – see if you can keep up, but don't say I didn't warn you…" With a burst of energy, she shot off ahead fast enough to leave a miniature wave of displaced air in her wake.

Kirito matched her speed easily, waving jauntily at her as she looked back. "Is this really the best you can do? I've seen you move faster during a kendo match!"

She narrowed her eyes. "Oh, it's on." She quickly accelerated to the maximum Speed allowable by the system, expecting the mental energy necessary to maintain that speed to be too much for her brother.

Her expectations were soon overturned by a shout from behind her. "Talonflame, use Tailwind!"

"But Ash, Talonflame doesn't even _know_ Tailwind!" Serena protested as Ash materialized the avian Pokémon from his inventory.

That didn't seem to slow it down, though; somehow it still managed to generate the requested Tailwind and boost their cruising velocity to match Leafa's maximum speed.

"Geez Kazuto, what kind of friends do you have?" she complained good-naturedly.

"Sorry, I forgot you didn't spend the better part of two years interacting with their weirdness magnetism. This sort of thing just kinda happens around them."

Leafa sighed, shaking her head. "I guess that explains how he can have a Familiar even though he's an Undine and not a Cait Sith. Is there some kind of story behind that?"

"Nothing out of the ordinary for them." Kirito dismissed. "Just something that pulled them here from an alternate universe a couple of years back…" He drifted his way over into the slipstream remaining from the Tailwind and shot ahead, leaving his sister to eat his (fairy) dust.

"Hey, you can't just leave me hanging like that!" she yelled after him. "Kazuto? KAZUTO!"


	4. Chapter 3

**.**

 **In the City of the Sylphs**

(Ep 17 Part 2)

* * *

As Kirito plummeted towards his demise, Serena reached out again to remotely slow his fall. She could have stopped it entirely, but with as many witnesses as there were it would have raised too many suspicious questions (at least she thought it would have, since neither she nor Ash knew yet what the players of the game would consider "normal"). As such, he still crashed into the ground with considerable speed – but it only shaved away about a quarter of his HP instead of the half he would have lost in the baseline universe.

"That was _so_ not cool." he groaned as Leafa landed next to him, pushing himself to a sitting position. "I'm gonna have to get you back for that sometime."

"You could do that, _or_ you could let me heal you and we'll call it even." she countered. Ash and Serena then touched down, and she turned to look at them. "You're an Undine, so you should probably look into the Healing Magic you have available to you. This spell is one of the best that non-Undines can learn, but if you get your Magic skill high enough you can even resurrect Players from their Remain Lights." She extended her hand and began chanting, and Ash activated his Aura Vision to see how the computer processed the spell.

A stream of green code energy started flowing from the location of her HUD, channeling itself through her palm and saturating Kirito's immediate surroundings. Kirito's avatar then absorbed the energy, automatically modifying it to match his avatar's Alignment, and his own HP bar increased as Leafa's MP decreased. It was very similar to the Aura Transfer technique Ash had utilized after Kirito's battle with the Gleam Eyes, only it negated the speed of direct transfer in return for making the resonance backlash almost nonexistent.

"So this is magic, huh?" Kirito commented as he watched his HP bar rise again.

Leafa nodded. "Mmhm."

Kirito laid back down, kicked up his legs, and vaulted back to his feet in a textbook example of a handless kip-up. "I heard you say that Undines specialize in healing magic, so what's the specialty of Spriggans? I just picked it because I liked the color."

Leafa chuckled. "You would do that, wouldn't you? Their skills are best for treasure-hunting and/or illusions – not the optimal skillset for combat."

Kirito shrugged. "Eh, I guess I'll figure something out. I'm a lot more used to melee fighting anyways. So, this is Swilvane?"

"Yep. It's beautiful, isn't it?"

"Sure is." Serena agreed, taking in their surroundings. The seemingly haphazard layout of all the towers gave the impression that the town had naturally evolved as it grew, and the deep green color saturating each one suggested an atmosphere of organic growth. Upon closer inspection, the pseudo-random organization managed to also give a sense of utility, attesting to the brilliance of the graphics artists and other designers involved in Swilvane's creation.

"Oh, and by the way, your friend is about to come running up behind us." Serena added, sensing an approaching player who was yelling Leafa's name at the top of his mental (and physical) lungs. Sure enough, a younger Sylph boy with a lime-green bowl cut ran around the side of one of the spires.

"Leafa, thank goodness you're okay!" he shouted, completely ignoring everyone else as he ran up to her. "But with as strong as you are, I knew you'd survive…" He did a double take when he saw Kirito, pulling out his dagger warily. "Wait a minute – who's this Spriggan creep?"

"I'd appreciate it if you didn't call my brother a creep, Recon." Leafa reprimanded him, interposing herself between them. "Besides, he was the one who saved me from those Salamanders."

Recon appeared to grow much more nervous when confronted with the prospect that he had just dissed Leafa's older brother, and his mind grabbed onto the first thing that popped out. "W-wait a minute! Even if he is your brother, how do we know he's not just using you to spy on us?"

"Sorry to burst your bubble, but my brother is too ditzy to be a good spy." she told him, drawing an exasperated look from Kirito.

"Thanks for the vote of confidence." he muttered under his breath, drawing snickers from Ash and Serena.

"Besides, since when would a Spriggan spy be traveling with an Undine and a Pooka? The whole point of a spy is to stay unnoticed, and a group of three players from different races is anything but stealthy." Leafa continued.

"I guess you have a point…" Recon admitted, before perking back up. "Oh yeah, Sigurd and the others are waiting at the tavern to split up the loot from today's trip."

"Here you go, then." Leafa opened up a Trade window and placed all the drops that had been transferred to her when her party members died inside. "None of the items matches my fighting style, so you guys can split it up without me."

Recon pouted. "Aw, c'mon – you're ditching us to hang out with your _brother_? Isn't that what time _outside_ the game is for?"

"It's my time, and I'll do with it what I please. E-mail me when you're organizing the next hunt, and I'll join you if I can." With that statement, Leafa grabbed Kirito's sleeve and dragged him away, leaving a sputtering Recon behind.

* * *

As she had predicted, the four of them walking together drew some odd stares, but the fact that they were escorted by a local tournament celebrity was enough to reassure most of the onlookers. They booked a table for four at the Lily of the Valley Pavillion, which Leafa recommended for its desserts.

"Don't eat too much, though." she warned. "Eating food in ALFheim makes you feel full in real life even if your stomach's empty, so you could spoil your appetite and not be able to eat real food when you log out."

"I don't think that'll be a problem for Ash." Serena said affectionately, slipping an arm around his shoulders and giving him a squeeze. "When it comes to food, he's like a bottomless pit."

Kirito nodded. "It's true. If he had been at that ramen shop with Asuna and I, we wouldn't have even needed to break out her soy sauce. Of course, that sauce was actually the reason we found out that the owner was a player and not an NPC…"

"Hold on a moment." Serena interrupted. "Are you saying you tried to run him out of stock _just_ to see whether or not he was an NPC?"

"In retrospect, it wasn't my best idea." he admitted sheepishly. "By the way, Leafa, what's up with that Recon guy? He seemed awfully nervous when he found out I was your older brother – is he some sort of secret online boyfriend or something?"

"What? No!" Leafa denied vehemently. "He's the classmate I told you about who introduced me to ALFheim, that's it!"

"I'm not so sure about that…" Kirito replied in a sing-song tone. "You know what they say about denial being the first sign of interest…"

"As much as I hate to burst your bubble, she's telling the truth." Serena informed him. "He likes her, but she sees him as more of the tagalong kid-next-door – or a sidekick when he's actually being useful."

Leafa, who had just been thinking about him in those exact terms, was dumbfounded. "How do _you_ know that? You only just met the two of us! Are you some kind of mind-reader or something?"

Kirito chuckled. "Considering it's them, I wouldn't be surprised. If nothing else, Serena has an uncanny insight into the way people think. Oh, thanks." he told the waitress as she delivered their drinks and snacks. As Yui took a bite of her cheesy biscuit, he sipped his ale (nonalcoholic, though drinking too much would result in a mobility debuff) and kicked back in his chair. "So those Salamanders we ran into earlier – are they usually that aggressive?"

Leafa shook her head. "No, PKing isn't usually that organized. The Sylphs and Salamanders have been fighting over the unclaimed hunting territory between them for months, but it wasn't until rumors about the Salamanders challenging the World Tree started going around that they started structured Player hunting."

Her last statement piqued Kirito's interest. "How much can you tell me about the World Tree? Based on the information that I have, I think Asuna's trapped at the top, and I need to get up there to help her escape."

His sister giggled. "Well, at least you've got a unique reason for trying to complete the Grand Quest…"

Ash frowned in confusion. "What do you mean by 'the Grand Quest'?"

"You know how I mentioned that players' wings get tired after about 10 minutes, forcing them to land and recharge? The game was designed that way on purpose – if you want unlimited flight time, you have to get past the army of NPC guardians inside the World Tree. The Fairy King Oberon will give the first race to reach him in the city atop the Tree the chance to be reborn as ALFs, with no restrictions on flight time. Of course, nobody so far has been able to make it past the guardians…"

"And have they been trying to go it alone, or did any of the races try to team up to get past?" Kirito asked, shifting his bite of pie into his cheek so he wouldn't spit it out while talking.

"Good idea, but that wouldn't work out in reality." she informed him. "After all, do you really think gamers would help out another race if they knew they were going to get passed up for the reward?"

Kirito rested his face in his hand briefly. "Oh yeah, guess I've been so used to playing with friends like these two that I forgot how normal people play MMOs. But even if it's impossible, I've got to try – for Asuna's sake, and for Yui's."

Ash nodded. "Serena and I are with you to the end of this. After all, we've faced impossible odds together before and come out on top, haven't we?"

The two of them held out their hands in a stack, and Kirito placed his on top gratefully. "Thanks, guys."

A fourth hand soon added itself. "If my brother's gonna be a reckless idiot, I may as well come along to watch his back." Leafa put in as Yui landed on top of the stack.

"Yeah, let's go rescue Mommy!"

The pact sealed, Leafa advised them to rent out rooms from the NPC who ran the place so they could log out safely. "After all," she reasoned, "Even though I tested out of those admissions exams tomorrow, I can't skip kendo – so let's meet up here at about 3:00 PM, okay?"

The other three nodded. "Got it."

She logged out in a flash of blue, leaving the three of them to make their own logout preparations.

* * *

As soon as his eyes opened up again, Ash took the helmet off and made his way downstairs.

"What are you doing, Ash?" Serena asked him, running to catch up with her boyfriend.

"Kirito's sister said that the enemies there were impossible to beat so far, right? So since I still have an open slot on my team, I was gonna call Professor Oak and ask if he could send over one of my other Pokémon." he answered, looking around for a videophone.

"The videophones are at the Pokémon Centers, remember?" she reminded him. "Plus, isn't there a time difference between here and there?"

That stopped him in his tracks. "Oh, you're right. It's late enough here that he's probably asleep right now. I guess we should just call Clemont and Bonnie so that they aren't worried and then talk to Professor Oak tomorrow morning."

Serena nodded as they walked out the door. "That sounds like a good plan. Should I rent out a room while you make the phone call, or do you want to rent out the room while I call them?"

"You can rent the room – it's been long enough since I've called someone myself that I probably ought to re-familiarize myself with the system for when I call Professor Oak tomorrow." He grabbed her hand and squeezed it appreciatively, welcoming the squeeze she gave in return.

They walked the rest of the way to the Center hand-in-hand, their journey punctuated by an occasional adoring "aww…" or jealous "lucky…" from passersby (usually, but not always, older folks and younger singles respectively). As they entered, Serena went to the front desk while Ash made his way over to the videophones.

"Let's see, local vs regional vs international…" he muttered, flipping through the provided users' guide that sat on the table next to the phones. "All right, Snowbelle falls under 'regional,' so I start the activation like _this_." He followed the written steps for a regional call and then flipped to the directory in the back to find the contact information for the Snowbelle Pokémon Center. "Now plug in the number, and _there_ we go…."

 _"Snowbelle Pokémon Center, this is Nurse Joy speaking. May I ask who you are calling for?"_ a voice answered after a couple of rings.

"Hey there, Nurse Joy." he responded. "If Clemont is there, can you tell him Ash is calling?"

Nurse Joy's response sounded slightly amused. _"This wouldn't happen to be the same Ash he and his sister have been looking for all evening, would it?"_

Ash laughed sheepishly. "Yep, that's me. My girlfriend and I forgot to tell him that we had an emergency come up that'll probably take a couple of days to resolve, and we're gonna be staying back at Lumiose City until then."

Nurse Joy nodded. _"I'll transfer you to one of the lobby phones, then."_ There was a _click_ , and his view shifted from behind the counter (where, incidentally, he could see a mini-TV, muted but with captions) to the corner of the lobby opposite the videophones.

Clemont ran up after about 30 seconds, breathing heavily. _"Ash, thank goodness you're alright! I was worried you and Serena might have lost track of time and gotten stuck in that snowstorm."_ He blinked and rubbed his glasses. _"Wait a minute, is that the Lumiose Pokémon Center? How did you manage to get there from here in only a few hours?"_

"Serena." Ash answered cryptically, not wanting to say too much about the whole 'alternate universe' thing over public communication. "We needed to borrow your invention from when our moms were here to help someone out, and it may take a day or two to finish."

Clemont was able to connect the dots relatively quickly. _"Gotcha. By the way, where's Pikachu? I see Serena at the counter getting a room key, but I don't see him there. Is he in the back?"_

Ash facepalmed. "They're still with the machine in your workshop. Ah well, I suppose they can keep Yui company tonight while Kirito's not there."

 _"All right, then. See you two when you get back. I'll tell Bonnie you said hi."_

"Got it. See ya later!" The connection terminated, and he followed Serena to the two-person suite she had rented. She immediately claimed the bottom bunk, and after a shower and a snack apiece, the two of them went to bed.

 _I wonder how Pikachu and the others are doing…_ he wondered as he drifted off to sleep. _After all, by the time we get back it will have already been about a day in-game…_

* * *

Omake: Who Says Girls Can't Fight?

* * *

With a whole day to spare before her Daddy got back with Aunt Leafa, Aunt Serena, and Uncle Satoshi, Yui decided to teach herself to fight so she could surprise him by helping. Even with the Fatal Scythe, all she had done was kick it in its bony shin for hurting Mommy and Daddy when it was on its last legs.

The invisibility cloak it had dropped was invaluable, though, allowing her and the Pokémon to sneak outside the Swilvane city limits so they could find monsters to fight. Getting them all out safely ended up being like one of those river-crossing logic puzzles where the boat can only hold a certain weight, but thanks to her artificial intelligence Yui was able to solve it quickly.

It also enabled her to memorize all the different styles of combat movement that Greninja demonstrated for her after only one or two run-throughs, and by the end of the day she was taking on low-level monsters almost by herself. If she ever got a physical body, training her muscles to respond that way would be another story, though – because she would have to adapt to using physical muscles in the first place. It took a while for her to start fighting too, since she didn't have a weapon of her own and so had to wait for one to drop from the monsters that Pikachu and the others defeated.

Unfortunately, the system flag labeling her a Navigation Pixie prevented her from accessing any Magic skills for herself, which meant she had to focus solely on physical combat. And in her pixie form, even that was useless, since she didn't have the mass necessary to give the weapon much piercing power.

Before long, though, the in-game day ended, forcing them to cut their training short and return to the Inn. _I've got a long way to go before I can help Daddy in a fight…_ she thought dejectedly, snuggling up in the bed with Pancham as if he was a big teddy bear. The panda had initially protested that snuggling was 'uncool,' but didn't have it in him to deny Yui when his struggles started to upset her.

It didn't stop him from muttering under his breath once she had fallen asleep, though. _"Just wait until I evolve into a Pangoro – let's see if she still wants to snuggle with me then!"_


	5. Chapter pi(e)

**.**

 **Bonus Chapter: Wowing "Le Wow"**

* * *

The Pokémon transfer the next morning went off without a hitch, although Charizard was initially confused as to why Pikachu wasn't there with Ash. It didn't stop him from using Flamethrower on Ash's face, though – but Ash just channeled his Aura into a shield, imbuing it with the elemental Water-type energy that his Undine form had an affinity for. The resulting steam explosion surprised Charizard, especially when it cleared to reveal Ash's pristine (if slightly damp) face.

 _"Party pooper."_ he sulked, crossing his arms. _"How'd you do that anyway?"_

"The same way I understood what you just said." Ash snarked.

Charizard did a double take. _"Yeah, right. Then tell me this: who's the chick?"_

An invisible shove knocked him onto his haunches. " 'The chick,' as you call me, is his girlfriend, and it sounds demeaning when you call me that."

 _"…You're having me on, aren't you? How could_ he _get a girlfriend in the eight months or so since I last saw him? It'd take at least a year or two before he would even_ consider _that he felt something other than friendship for someone, even if they had the most obvious crush in the world on him."_

Ash chuckled sheepishly. "You're actually not too far off the mark. There was this adventure where time got sort of messed up, and we lived through two years in about two weeks. It's also where I learned to control the Aura abilities I learned about in Rota…"

Charizard sighed. _"The sad thing is, your story is becoming more and more believable every moment. I don't even have a comeback for that one. So when do I get to meet the rest of your team?"_

"They're over at the Gym right now. Would you mind flying us up to the observation deck on top of the big tower? That's the fastest way there, and it'll give you a chance to stretch your wings again."

Charizard shrugged. _"Meh, got nothing better to do. And this way, you can't get lost *again*."_ They walked out of the Center and mounted his back before taking off and flying over the city towards Prism Tower. As soon as they ascended, though, Charizard questioned the wisdom of using him to fly only two blocks.

"Whoops, sorry." Ash apologized. "I got mixed up and thought we were at the Pokémon Center at the top of the map, not the one at the center. If you want to just fly around for a while, you can."

Charizard let out a _whuff_ of smoke from his nostrils. _"I think I may just take you up on that."_ As they flew around the city, he decided to see if Ash's new girlfriend (and he was still having trouble wrapping his own mind around the concept) would be able to keep up with him in an unexpected situation and went into a series of looping dives, aileron rolls, and other fancy flying tricks.

After having flown for themselves in ALFheim, though, neither of them was *nearly* as off-balanced by his acrobatics as he had expected, and he finally gave up and began cruising around the city. _"You've gotten a lot better at flying than last time."_ he noted approvingly, craning his neck to give Ash a smirking grin.

Ash grinned back. "And you'll see why in a couple of hours, when we meet up with the friends we're helping and explain why we brought you here."

 _"Fine, but I expect a complete explanation."_ Happening to glance below, Charizard had an idea about a way to pass the time that he felt his Trainer wouldn't be able to pass up. He folded in his wings and dove down towards the street, alighting in front of a fancy restaurant.

Their arrival was punctuated by a loud growl as Charizard roared challengingly towards the heavens, and he eyed his trainer suspiciously. _"If I didn't know better, I would think your stomach had choreographed that somehow."_ Before Ash could respond, though, the maître d' exited the restaurant, shaking his head.

"No, no, this will not do!" he exclaimed, making shooing motions with his hands. "Restaurant Le Wow is for only the most stylish of patrons!"

"…We flew in on a Charizard, and yet you say we don't have style?" Ash deadpanned. "Even Serena, who was the runner-up in the most recent Master-class showcase?"

"I suppose you have a point…" the man dithered, clearly reluctant to let them in. "But do you have any similar achievements that merit your entrance?"

"Kanto Battle Frontier champion with a standing invitation to become a Frontier Brain? Sinnoh League Top 4, taking down a previously undefeated Darkrai and Latios? I've done more, but those are the ones people would have heard of."

"And even so, he's my boyfriend, so I would have invited him in with me anyways." Serena put in, placing a hand on his shoulder.

The maître d' finally relented. "Fine, but this is most unheard of. You had best hope your battling skills are enough to compensate for your unstylish appearance." He led the two of them inside, Charizard returning to his Pokéball in order to fit through the door. As they sat down, the waiter asked them if they wanted the Double, Triple, or Rotation Battle meal.

Since they only had Charizard with them, Ash sent a mental query to Serena to see if she wanted to participate in the battle herself. When she answered no, he selected the Double Battle meal from the menu. Once he had, the waiter explained the rules: As each course was cooking, one of the staff would fight their chosen team in a Double Battle, and the closer they stuck to the posted "standards of perfection" for each course, the more likely it was that they would get a reward at the end of the meal.

The first opponent was the owner, a man named Christophe, and his Ferrothorn and Druddigon. The Ferrothorn, Ash realized, would be a piece of cake for Charizard's Flamethrower. The Druddigon, on the other hand, would be much harder without a Dragon-, Ice- or Fairy-type – _wait, that's it!_ In much the same way as he had imbued his Aura with Water energy when Charizard tried to Flamethrower his face, Ash concentrated once again on how it felt to be an Undine Fairy. Rather than isolating the Water affinity, though, he isolated the _other_ type of energy, and the resulting Moonblast did serious damage to Druddigon.

Christophe was (not unexpectedly) surprised at the fact that Ash knew how to use Pokémon attacks, which allowed Charizard to eliminate Druddigon with a Slash. Since neither of them had used more than two attacks, they had fulfilled the conditions for a "perfect course" and gained a small measure of respect from the staff.

Christophe's next team, Alomomola and Amoongus, were a bit harder. Thanks to the type advantage only being half as effective against Amoongus, it managed to survive Charizard's Flamethrower – albeit on its last legs. Ash, meanwhile, had no attacks that were super effective against the Water-type Alomomola, and so he just threw an Aura Sphere at it. In response, it set up an Aqua Ring (not having expected Amoongus to survive long enough for Heal Pulse to be useful) to stall the battle out beyond two attacks.

Amoongus used Feint Attack to try and take Ash out of the running, but that turned out to be its own undoing. Though the Dark-type energy saturating it made it invisible to Psychics, its Aura still blazed brightly enough for Ash to track it, and he disrupted the attack a point blank Aura Sphere – the extra damage from the Fighting-Dark matchup perfectly countering the Fighting-Poison damage reduction. Charizard, meanwhile, pulled out one of his old tricks and Seismic Tossed Alomomola to the ground, draining its health too quickly for Aqua Ring to take effect.

The next battle was against a waiter named Morris, his Wobbuffet, and his Milotic. Thanks to the lack of super-effective moves and the limited number of attacks, Ash had to come up with another off-the-wall strategy. As Charizard attacked Milotic with Slash, powering through a Hydro Pump in the process, Ash darted around to the other side of Wobbuffet and threw an Aura Sphere that was locked onto Milotic's Aura Signature.

Wobbuffet, seeing the incoming Aura Sphere, immediately set up a Mirror Coat – and Charizard then broke off to Slash _it_ instead as the Sphere curved around and slammed into Milotic. Ash then vaulted over Wobbuffet's head, preparing another Aura Sphere and preparing to throw it at Milotic.

Morris, thinking that Ash wouldn't try the same trick twice, ordered Milotic to use Mirror Coat himself. Wobbuffet, on the other hand, was getting low enough on health that it decided to use Destiny Bond to try and take one of his opponents with him. The problem was, with all the switching they were doing, he had to use it untargeted in order to ensure that he didn't target the wrong opponent.

That was exactly what Ash was hoping for, and he used Detect (visibly, so that the referee would know that one side had used 3 moves) to dodge out of the way of the Mirror Coat attack. Due to where he had launched his Aura Sphere from, his dodge placed Wobbuffet directly in the line of fire – and Destiny Bond took out Milotic for them.

Morris's next team consisted of a Floatzel and a Lucario, who was slightly surprised to see that the strong Aura he had sensed from inside his Pokéball was a human and not another Lucario. Out of respect for one another, he and Ash each agreed to target the other opponent during the battle.

Lucario almost immediately regretted that decision when Charizard withstood his Bullet Punch and revealed his own recently-learned Fire Blast at point blank range. Since Lucario's body was built to withstand close-quarters physical blows and not indirect attacks like flame, Charizard's overpowered attack was enough to eliminate him, leaving Charizard another attack with which to assist Ash against Floatzel.

The Sea Weasel Pokémon, meanwhile, had used Protect, his Trainer reasoning that the shielding effect would be enough to withstand two attacks from Ash. Unfortunately for them, two years of combat training had taught Ash how to Feint, pretending to attack from one direction while actually preparing to attack from another. As he felt the energy balance within the shield shift towards his moving fist, his leg lashed out and impacted the newly created weak spot, shattering Floatzel's Protect and dealing damage. He followed it up with Close Combat, ignoring any and all defensive strategy to deal as much damage as possible in a short amount of time.

He paid for it when Floatzel surrounded himself in an Aqua Jet that carried the two of them high into the air, intending to charge at the ground with Ash underneath and take him out that way. There was no way he could save himself without being judged to have used another move, which meant that they were almost bound to lose their perfect record.

"Almost" being the keyword – Charizard then flew past, grabbing Floatzel in another Seismic Toss whose descent passed close enough to Ash for him to mount the Fire-type in midair. By the time Floatzel regained his bearings, it was too late for him to inflate his protective vest and he slammed into the ground at full speed.

After that, the waitress Paula's Exploud and Aurorus were almost child's play – one Savage Fulcrum Sword Skill with an Aura-based replica of the sword Heart of Justice (which Lisbeth had forged Ash for his birthday) was able to take it down with little to no difficulty. Charizard, seeing an Echoed Voice attack building in Exploud's open mouth, launched a half-formed Fire Blast that impacted the attack before she could fire it, causing a massive explosion inside her mouth.

 _"Not so fireproof on the inside, are you?"_ he taunted as she staggered backwards, Seismic Tossing her to the floor and putting her out for the count. His opponent, being unconscious, could only reply with silence.

The silence was soon broken by a solitary pair of hands clapping. "Very well done, my boy!" Christophe congratulated Ash, walking up to shake his hand. "Never before in the history of this establishment has a Trainer managed to complete all five courses perfectly while participating in the battle themselves. Admittedly, you did bend the rules somewhat by using more than four different moves, which is frowned upon in officially recognized battles – but since this was a series of battles rather than one long battle, I am willing to overlook that fact. Would you like your prize now, or do you want it mailed to you?"

"Hmm… is it something that would get damaged if you tried to mail it to Kanto?" Ash asked. "Oh, wait – Serena, do you think your mom would mind if we had it sent to her house?"

Christophe nodded. "Yes, an address in Kalos would be much preferred. It's a crate full of highly-acclaimed mushrooms that keep best under refrigeration, and the shipping service we work with is currently in the process of renovating the refrigerated compartments on their airlift vehicles."

Serena, sensing no duplicity from the man, agreed and wrote down her mom's address on the shipping label he offered. He then took Ash and Charizard's photo, hanging it up on the restaurant's Wall of Fame next to a joint photo of Lance, Steven, and their Dragonite and Metagross respectively.

Misinterpreting Ash's extended gaze at that photo, he chuckled. "Ah yes, Lance and Steven, the first two to complete a meal perfectly as a tag-team. I daresay your Charizard could give either of them a run for their money – or at least Lance. Rumor has it that Steven can Mega Evolve his Metagross now, so you would probably need a Charizardite to beat him."

Charizard sighed. _"If only…"_

"Um, Ash?" Serena interrupted, looking at the clock on her guidebook. "It's almost 2:30. We'd best get back to Prism Tower now."

"Oh, right. Thanks for the battle – it was really fun!" Ash said as he returned Charizard and paid for the meal.

"No problem. Come back any time!" Christophe told him. "You won't be eligible to win the prize again, but the better you do the more of a discount you'll get."

Ash chuckled. "I might just take you up on that offer sometime. Next time, Serena and I might even fight as a team."

Christophe blinked as they released Charizard again and mounted him. "Wait, do you mean team up as trainers, or team up on the field like you did today?"

Charizard whispered something to Ash with a snigger before preparing to take off. Taking Charizard's advice, Ash just replied with a simple "yes" as they ascended, leaving Christophe confused.

"Hold on, is that a yes to the first, a yes to the second, a yes to the entire question, or…?"

* * *

They logged back into the room they had rented just as Leafa was leaving the Inn to do some equipment shopping, and Ash released Charizard to meet his Kalos team. The fire lizard's eyes gleamed dangerously when he was introduced to Greninja, especially after Pikachu commented that Greninja had managed to go toe-to-toe with the Kalos Champion's Mega Gardevoir. If it weren't for a timely interruption by Yui, which led to him learning that they were on a quest to save her Mommy, there was little doubt that he would have challenged Greninja then and there.

As it was, he demanded that Ash not send him back until after his next Gym battle so that he could accurately evaluate the strength of his newest rival for the position of "team powerhouse." It was then that he noticed what was different about his Trainer. _"Wait a minute, why do you have blue hair?"_

"It's because Uncle Satoshi is an Undine." Yui piped up. "Their default hair color is blue, since they use Water magic."

 _"Magic, huh? This isn't like that quack who turned you into a Pikachu that one time, is it?"_ Charizard asked.

"Hey, being able to do that actually means she _wasn't_ just a quack." Ash retorted. "And no, magic in this game is restricted to specifically-structured attacks, defensive moves, and non-damaging skills, a lot like in those turn-based battle simulators that we see people using sometimes."

 _"I see. Skills like what?"_

"Like flight, for instance. You were wondering how I got so much more comfortable with trick flying? This is how." He activated his wings with a thought and flew back and forth across the room a couple of times.

Charizard stroked his chin thoughtfully. _"I'm guessing that's how you managed to hit that Druddigon with a Moonblast earlier? Right now you look like a Water/Fairy-type."_

 _"Hey, wait a minute!"_ Greninja interrupted. _"That's MY giant water shuriken! How'd you get ahold of it?"_

Ash shrugged. "I have no idea. It's just the way the wings I was given are designed. And yes, all the players here are Fairies of some kind. It doesn't work the same way in here as the Fairy-type does in our world, though, since steel weapons don't do extra damage – and I don't think poisons do either. But it also means that they're not immune to Dragons."

 _"And good riddance!"_ Charizard _humph_ ed, pleased at the information.

"But you're not even Dragon-type…"

 _"I know, but it's the principle of the thing!"_

"…It's almost 3:00 now." Serena interrupted. "We should probably go downstairs and wait for Kirito and Leafa to get here so we can go."

 _"Fine."_ Charizard agreed. _"But this discussion isn't over yet."_

 _"Yes it is."_ Pikachu snarked from Ash's shoulder.

 _"No it isn't."_

 _"Yes it is."_

 _"Oh yeah? Then why are you still arguing with me?"_

 _"Well, I could be arguing in my spare time…"_

"Can it, you two." Ash told them, recalling each one to his Inventory (but not to the Pokéballs that were also stored within). "All right, Yui – we'll see you downstairs once your dad gets here."

"Got it. See you there!"

* * *

Omake: You Didn't Think I'd Forget This, Did You?

* * *

Inside the Inventory Storage realm, Charizard was still quite miffed. _"You know what else I just realized?"_ he asked as Hawlucha challenged him to an arm-wrestling competition to pass the time.

 _"What?"_

 _"Almost nothing important happened during this chapter – Ash got me from Professor Oak's lab, we basically ripped off a restaurant owner, and I came here and met all the new guys. None of it was world-building, and it could have all been over within about two or three paragraphs. So what's the point of drawing it out to fill up an entire storytelling session?"_

 _"It wasn't all pointless."_ Pikachu pointed out. _"The audience got to see you and Ash kicking butt together, which shows both your prowess and his character development. Plus there's the whole thing about 'the characters taking over and writing the story themselves.' Incidentally, I never told you about my 'TV show logic' hypothesis, did I?"_

Greninja groaned, wiping a hand over his face in exasperation. _"Please stop."_

Charizard, on the other hand, was intrigued. _"No, what about it?"_

 _"Well, I've noticed that every time we get involved with this world something happens that follows the way Nurse Joy's TV shows progress…"_


	6. Chapter 4

**.**

 **A Severing of Ties**

(Ep 18 Part 2)

* * *

Kirito and Leafa entered the Inn's lobby at about the same time, and Ash and Serena waved the two of them over to the corner they were standing in.

"Hey, sis." Kirito greeted her as they came close enough to talk. "I saw you were already logged in when I got home – you been waiting long?"

Leafa shook her head. "Kendo practice ended early, so I decided to do some equipment shopping before we met up. After all, it never hurts to have enough health and mana potions."

A brief pang of sadness flashed in Kirito's eyes as he remembered all the deaths in SAO that had occurred when players hadn't listened to that advice. "Don't I know it." he said morosely, before remembering something he had said to Asuna back in SAO. _Let the past shape you, but don't let it define you – that's the lesson that helps me live with myself day after day in this world._ Drawing on that advice once again, he pulled himself out of his brief stupor. "Speaking of equipment shopping, I don't think this sword's gonna cut it – no pun intended. You know where I can get a new one?"

Leafa facepalmed when she realized how bad Kirito's pun was, but answered anyways. "Yeah, I know a good weapon shop, but they're not cheap. Do you think you have enough money? After all, new players don't start with much."

Kirito scrolled through his Menu to check. "This 'Yuld' stuff – is that this game's currency?" At Leafa's nod, he closed his Menu. "Then it won't be a problem. Somehow, my funds from SAO got transferred over to ALO. Normally I would consider it cheating, but since I earned it there legitimately and it'll help rescue Asuna faster, I have no problems with spending it. I'd advise that you two do the same."

Ash and Serena nodded. "Got it."

* * *

On the way to the weapon shop, Ash noticed a tailor with an outfit similar to Greninja's color scheme – which Leafa said was actually relatively high-quality gear for its price when he pointed it out. The tailor, eager to see an Undine passing through that was _finally_ willing to buy the outfit, offered to give Serena a discount if she upgraded hers at his store as well. She ended up choosing a tunic similar to the dress she had worn ever since her Showcase loss, with a pair of matching pants to preserve her modesty while flying.

Kirito, meanwhile, was searching the shelves full of black clothing to see if he could find an approximation to his old Blackwyrm Coat. After a few minutes, he found something that was a good balance between appearance, price, and stats, purchasing that and equipping it in the offered changing room.

Next came weapons. While Ash and Serena weren't too picky about his sword and her dagger, Kirito preferred much heavier swords, and so it took him a while to find one that he liked. Eventually he settled on a massive zweihander that was almost as tall as he was – one that would have been impractical in real life, but that his massive Strength stat allowed him to wield one-handed. Leafa joked that it made him look like a little kid who thought bigger swords made him look more impressive, and he countered by saying that it would look even _more_ impressive when he actually used it.

She also teased him about his landing difficulties as they approached the tower in the center of town, drawing a look of annoyance from her brother. _"I should've asked one of them to teach me how to fly…"_ he groused in a stage whisper. _"Maybe then I wouldn't have been in such a pickle when you abandoned me."_ When the only response he garnered was giggles, he sighed. "By the way, why are we headed back to the tower?"

"I think I know." Ash cut in, thinking back to the flying lessons Hawlucha had given Noibat back when he first hatched. "If you're gonna be flying long distances, it's best to glide when you can, and you can get further when gliding if you start higher up. Is that it?"

Leafa gave him a thumbs-up. "Got it in one. Now let's go – I wanna get past the forest before dark." A brief flicker of confusion flashed on her face as her eyes washed over the mansion on the other side of the tower, but by the time Serena noticed it the Sylph girl's surface thoughts had changed to _I'll worry about it later_.

They entered the tower, and Leafa directed them towards the lift in the center. Just before they reached it, though, a reprimanding voice called out her name.

"Oh, hello Sigurd." she answered, nodding in acknowledgement.

He didn't seem to be in the mood for pleasantries. "Rumor has it that you're abandoning the party. Is that true?"

"Well, it was going to be temporary – but considering your attitude about it, I'm thinking I might make it a little more permanent." Leafa said, placing her hands on her hips. "You said when I joined that I could leave whenever I wanted, remember?"

"I know what I said, but think about how disappointed the other players would be if you left. Not to mention the damage our reputation would receive if a well-known long-term member decided to just up and leave."

"Are you really thinking of their feelings and reputation, or just yours?" Serena challenged him. "I bet you're more concerned that you won't seem as impressive without your rival for the title of 'strongest Sylph' under your authority, especially since she's a girl."

Having his own thoughts thrown in his face in front of his men irritated Sigurd, especially when Kirito spoke up. "She's right. You can't treat people like items, like tools with no feelings of their own. That's not how life should work, and it's not how this game should work either."

Sigurd's expression was strained, and his hand strayed to the hilt of his sword. "This from a player who chose a mercenary race, who are best known for their 'profit-first' ideology? I can see why your superiors must have thrown you out of your territory – let's see if you have the strength to back up your words, you Renegade piece of Spriggan trash!"

"If he's a renegade, then so am I." Ash said, stepping forward beside Kirito.

"Me too." Serena agreed, flanking the Spriggan on his other side.

Sigurd looked at Leafa condescendingly. "And you? Would you abandon your territory to become a Renegade like him?"

Leafa's eyes flashed. "Yes. Yes, I would. And your attitude just confirms my choice."

Just before Sigurd finally drew his sword, Kirito held up his hand. "Before you make any rash decisions, look around. Are you really willing to attack us in front of an audience like this, especially when we can't legally attack you back?"

"He has a point." one of Sigurd's companions said. "They haven't done anything illegal, so it'll look really bad if we attack them for stating their honest opinion."

Sigurd growled for a few seconds before removing his hand from his sword hilt. _"Fine."_ he ground out. "But you'd better hope you can hide once you cross the border. I'm not one to take a betrayal like this lightly. Sooner or later, you're going to regret leaving." He turned on his heel and stalked away, accompanied by his companions.

"Sorry about that." Leafa apologized to the three of them as the crowd went back to their previous activities. "I suppose a confrontation like that has been a long time coming, but I'm glad you had my back when it happened."

Kirito patted her on the shoulder. "Hey, what kind of a brother would I be if I didn't support you when something like this happens? Now, let's get going."

* * *

"Wow, the sky looks so close from here!" Serena exclaimed as they walked out onto the platform at the summit. "It's almost like I can reach out and touch it!"

Leafa nodded in agreement. "Mmhmm. It's one of the best things about ALFheim – when you're flying, everything else seems so small in comparison to the sky in front of you. The other players, the land below, any worries you may have in-game or in real life…"

"Oh yeah, Leafa? When that guy called me a Renegade earlier, what did he mean by that?" Kirito asked her.

She sighed. "Basically, it's anyone who abandons their territory or their people. In my case, I'd be turning my back on the Sylphs; in your case, you 'abandoned your people' by actually caring about players as people instead of opportunities to turn a profit. Sigurd's made it very clear that racial loyalty is a big deal to him, and most people here have similar attitudes. They look down on renegades as inferior to loyalists, which is why being labeled as a renegade is considered bad."

"But why tie each other down like that?" Ash questioned. "What's the point of giving up freedom of choice just for the ability to fly?"

"I don't understand it either." Yui piped up. "Why do humans treat each other so horribly when years of psychological research indicate that companionship is much more desirable?"

Leafa chuckled wryly. "That's just how some people are. Why, what would you do?"

"Well, for instance, if I wanted to show affection for Daddy I would just do this!" She flitted up to his shoulder and pecked his cheek. "Simple, straightforward, and effective."

"Of course, in a lot of places something like that would be considered harassment…" Kirito informed her. "Human society's a lot stricter about that kind of stuff, especially in public. By the way, unless you want to fly alongside us the whole time, you might want to get back in my pocket."

They were just about to take off when Recon's voice came echoing out of the elevator shaft. "Leafaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!" he yelled, running out of the doors as soon as they opened. "You could've at least told me you were actually leaving town today…"

"Sorry. I thought I had told you during our conversation at school, but I must not have been clear enough." she apologized. "But my brother needs help, and I can't let him go without my support. What I'm wondering right now is, what do _you_ plan on doing once I've left?"

Recon smirked, puffing out his chest in an attempt to look impressive. "You pledged your sword to support him, so I'm gonna pledge mine to support you!"

Leafa chuckled at his awkward attempt at flirting. "Thanks for the offer, but I can handle myself without your help."

Recon wilted at her statement, reminding Kirito of the incident in the orphanage on Aincrad's first Floor. "Is there maybe something you could do here to help?" he asked. "Even if we're not here, having someone who Leafa knows well keep an eye on Sigurd could help warn us if he does try and come after us."

The Sylph boy's voice perked up at that. "You're right! Something about him has been feeling kinda fishy for a while now, so I'll stay in his party for a little longer and keep an eye on him. If I find anything out, I'll message you."

"Good." Leafa walked to the edge of the platform. "Now let's get going, guys. We don't have all day." They took off in a flurry of flapping wings, the game's programming weaving the sounds of the four different races' flight into a triumphant four-part harmony.

* * *

After about three hours of on-and-off flight, they reached a clearing close to the base of a mountain, and Leafa informed them that they were almost at the point where they couldn't fly any further. The path to Arun led past the mountain, and since the peak was above the altitude limit they would have to go through the tunnels beneath.

At the news that there was a neutral town about halfway through the tunnels where they would be able to rest, Kirito chuckled. "An unclimbable mountain with a friendly mining town underneath? I see even the developers still consider Tolkien a classic, then. Hopefully there's not some kind of lake with a giant tentacle monster outside the entrance to the tunnels, though, or else nobody would be able to travel back and forth without a party of at least Nine…"

Leafa shook her head fondly. " _Nerd_. By the way, while we're waiting for our wings to recharge, you guys want to rotate out so we can all get something to eat? Kazuto and I can go first, and then we'll guard your avatars while you log out."

Ash nodded. "Sounds like a plan to me!"

Kirito and Leafa quickly logged out, and she prepared a couple of sandwiches for them while he showered. He returned the favor by cleaning their dishes during her shower, and they soon finished and logged back in.

A few minutes after Ash and Serena logged out, Kirito tensed up and began looking around suspiciously.

"What is it, Kazuto?" Leafa asked, putting a hand on her katana.

"It's probably nothing." he admitted, scratching the back of his head. "I just got the feeling that we were being watched, but my Searching skill didn't reveal anybody hiding nearby – and I mastered it during SAO, which means it's at maximum sensitivity. Only something like Yui's invisibility cloak could evade detection, and even that was supposed to be unattainable thanks to the strength of the Boss it dropped from."

Yui poked her head out of Kirito's pocket. "I'm not detecting any players in the vicinity, either."

Leafa _humm_ ed in thought for a moment. "Maybe it's a Tracker summoned by another player or something. The game wouldn't consider those players, and they would be basically indistinguishable from regular monsters."

"What's a Tracker?" Kirito asked. "I know it's supposed to track things, but _how_ do they track them?"

"It looks like a small animal – a butterfly, a bat, or something similar." Leafa explained. "Players with a high enough Magic skill can summon them and lock them onto another player's ID, and they send the location back to the one who summoned them in the form of map data."

"Okay then, is there any way to destroy them?"

Leafa was torn between nodding and shaking her head. "Technically, you _can_ ; it's just that being small makes them super-hard to find, and you can't destroy them if you can't find them. And the higher the caster's Magic skill, the larger of a range the Tracker has and the further it can trace you from. Honestly, in a field this size, trying to find one wouldn't be worth the time it would take."

Kirito considered the information for a moment. "So that means our best bet would be to ignore it until it slips up and shows itself?"

Leafa nodded. "If there even is one, that is. And it'd be a lot harder for one to hide once we're in the tunnels."

"All right, then. Once Ash and Serena get back, we head for the tunnels."

A voice from above startled them. "Then what are we waiting for? Let's go!" They looked up to see Ash and Serena hovering overhead, having somehow logged in and begun flying without being noticed.

Leafa looked at Kirito to see if he had an explanation. "They do that kind of thing all the time." he dismissed as they took off. "I think they explained it to me once, but all I can remember is that it reminded me of some book I read years ago where the Earth was destroyed to build an intergalactic highway or something…"

* * *

About a mile and a half away, the leader of the Salamander assault squad received a signal from his Tracer.

"They're on the move again." he announced, gathering the attention of his men. "Remember the plan: trap them, tank the Spriggan's attacks, and eliminate his support as quickly as possible. Once the Undine is out of the way, we don't have to worry about him healing them, and this battle should be easy."

The others on the squad nodded. "Roger."

As they took off, though, a slightly older one of the players shook his head sorrowfully. "You shouldn't have said that." he muttered under his breath. "Now that you have, it'll be anything _but_ easy."

* * *

Omake: Deep-Dish Distractions

* * *

Out in Clemont's workshop, a masked figure was digging through the debris on the work bench. "Where is that infernal device?" he muttered as he searched. He needed to find it, or else his plans for the night would be ruined!

He heard a machine beeping across the room, and looked over to see Ash and Serena stirring from their stasis as the power lights on their helmets blinked off. That was no good – even if he managed to retrieve the device, it would all be for naught if he was discovered. He dove behind the workbench, hunching over so that they wouldn't see him.

"What are you doing behind Clemont's workbench, Mr. Rosenfeld?" Ash asked, sitting up and retrieving his Pokéballs from their slots. "Did you leave something up here this morning or something?"

 _Oh yeah, I forgot they could identify people they knew without having to see them…_ Meyer realized mareepishly, pulling off his Blaziken mask and poking his head up above the workbench. "Something like that." he admitted, hoping they wouldn't come over. "I've got leftover pizza in the fridge downstairs if you want some."

"Oh, thanks!" Ash replied, helping Serena off her cot. "Is it okay if we borrow some of the Pokémon food from the pantry, too?"

"Go right ahead." Meyer answered, distracted by the sight of the night-vision monocle he had been looking for lying underneath the table. _Whew, that was close…_ he thought as the two of them went downstairs, donning his mask and taking on the identity of Blaziken Mask once again. _And now that I've got this, those criminals won't know what hit them!_


	7. Chapter 5

**.**

 **The Battle of the Corridor**

(Ep 19 Part 1)

* * *

The four adventurers soon reached the entrance to the mines, and Kirito took in the ominous, blocky entrance with an amused stare. "For an area inspired by the Mines of Moria, this gateway bears an oddly strong resemblance to the Paths of the Dead from the film trilogy." he commented as they walked inside. "I wonder which, if either, the inside will resemble more."

"Well, we'll never know if we can't see." Leafa replied, straining to see in the quickly-deepening darkness. "A lot of the time, players hire Spriggans to retrieve treasures from dark caves for them – which makes me suspect that you have some sort of night-vision spell that's more effective than anything I can use in your Magic list."

"Well, I guess we'll just have to see, then." He tapped on his pocket. "Yui, do you know if I have a spell like that available?"

"Honestly, Daddy!" she chastised him. "You should really read the instructions when it comes to something like this. I'll tell you how to use this one, but you'll have to learn the rest yourself. Now hold out your hand and repeat after me…"

As Kirito began to invoke the spell, Leafa happened to glance further into the cave. Her eyes widened and she gasped when she saw a pair of floating blue circles at about head height – and then the night-vision effect washed over her, making her surroundings seem brighter and revealing that Ash was standing right where the lights had been, looking back with a confused expression on his face. "What's taking you guys so long?" he asked, before Serena tapped him on the shoulder.

"For the same reason I was walking behind you and not beside you." she said. "Until Kirito did that thing just now, none of us three could see in the dark."

"Oh, right." he chuckled sheepishly. "Forgot about that. I suppose that means magic's more useful than you thought it was, eh Kirito?"

"Oh, shut up." Kirito retorted succinctly, tossing a pebble lightly at him. "You haven't looked at yours either, have you?"

Ash caught the pebble and winged it right back. "No, _you_ shut up." he shot back, unable to think of a witty enough response.

Meanwhile, Serena and Leafa had walked on ahead. " _Boys_ …" Leafa sighed, shaking her head. "I'll never understand them."

Serena chuckled. "After spending as much time as I did with Ash, I sort of understand on an informational level; I just don't _get_ it on the same emotional level he does. But that does give me an idea…" As subtly as she could, she pushed the concept of _competition_ across her bond with Ash, and her efforts soon bore fruit.

"All right then, let's have a contest. Whoever can memorize the most spells by the time we get to the town gets 500 Yuld from the loser." Ash proposed.

Kirito opened his menu and navigated to the Magic sub-section. "You're so on."

Leafa sweatdropped. "Well, if that was your idea, then it worked. But at least it means he's actually taking an interest in magic instead of just brushing it off like he has been…"

"Hey, Leafa!" Kirito called from behind her. "How would you say is the best way to memorize spells?"

* * *

After taking Leafa's advice and trying to connect the meanings of the spellwords with their effects, Kirito felt as if he had memorized most of the beginner-level spells in his arsenal reasonably well. Unfortunately, for someone as straightforward in combat as he was, most of said spells were not very useful in a fight at all. The ones he thought would be the most useful so far were the Smokescreen spell, which could give him a brief moment of cover, and the Illusion spell, which could help him intimidate opponents. The second spell had a bit of an oddity in its flavor text, though; it mentioned something about transforming the user into a monster 'based on the user's stats' – but was that the Magic stat or some other kind of skill like Unarmed Combat? He resolved to ask Yui later, once they got to the city and she no longer had to keep watch for hostile players and monsters.

Ash, meanwhile, was going about his memorization in a completely different fashion. He cast each spell once, analyzing how the system shaped the energy to generate the desired effect, and attempted to duplicate it via a judicious application of Aura.

 _I kinda don't think that's how this game was intended to work…_ Serena told him, amused.

 _Hey, it's basically the same thing Leafa told Kirito!_ he responded. _Figure out how all the parts fit together to make the whole, and use that to remember how to perform the spell._

 _Fine, I'll give you that._ Serena conceded. _But you've got a big advantage over him, so be nice and let him keep his money, okay?_

 _But… but the competition – we shook on it!_ Ash protested weakly, but his girlfriend wouldn't take no for an answer, and he sighed quietly. _Yes, dear._

Serena slipped up next to him and pecked him on the cheek. _Thanks for being so understanding._

"Talk about not playing fair…" he grumbled good-naturedly. "Huh, I wonder why we stopped."

Leafa walked up to them with a Private Message window open. "Do either of you have any idea what Recon meant when he sent me this? Kazuto and I can't make heads or tails of it."

She made the window visible and turned it around to face them. [I was right! Be careful, S]

"We don't know whether someone talked him into sending this as a prank, or whether he was being serious. I mean, he signed it with an S instead of an R, and he doesn't usually even sign his messages since he's the only one on my Friends List."

 _"Well, what if it wasn't a signature?"_ Pikachu piped up from in the Inventory, having listened in on the conversation. _"After all, he did say he was suspicious about something before we left, didn't he? Why send us just the barest information if he knew he was right?"_

Ash relayed Pikachu's suggestion, and Kirito snapped his fingers. "Sigurd – that's what the S stands for. He must have gotten caught halfway through composing the message and only had time to send part of it! Unfortunately, that doesn't tell us what he has planned…"

"I guess I'll have to log out and ask him once we reach Legrue." Leafa decided. "C'mon, let's hurry up and go."

Suddenly, Yui gasped and poked her head out of Kirito's pocket. "There's a group of twelve players incoming!"

Leafa's expression hardened. "Change of plans. I'll hide Kazuto and myself using Sylph concealment magic, and you two do whatever you did that kept us from noticing you earlier. We'll wait for them to pass, and then make our way to Legrue behind them." She pulled Kirito into the nearest crevice and cast a Concealment spell that created an illusion of solid stone in front of them.

Ash and Serena squished into the next crevice together, and Serena cast a Notice-Me-Not over the two of them. A few seconds passed, during which Yui informed them that the incoming party was about two minutes away. Almost immediately after, a small red bat came flying around the corner, a tether of magical energy stretching backwards past the edge of Ash and Serena's range of detection.

Kirito had obviously noticed it too, since Leafa dropped her concealment spell in order to destroy it with an Air Cutter attack (or at least the game's analogue of one, anyways). "No use hiding – that Tracer was a high enough level to see through concealment spells, and now they know we've destroyed it. Our best bet is to try and beat them to the Town." They took off running, relying on Yui's direction to find the fastest path.

* * *

"Looks like we're gonna make it!" Kirito exclaimed as they emerged onto a long bridge. "Based on the color of the bat you destroyed, I'm guessing those are Salamanders chasing us?"

"Bingo. Question is, how did they put a tracker like that on us? We would've noticed unless they were in Swilvane when they did it, and a group of Salamanders would be kind of hard to miss. And speaking of missing, make sure you don't miss your footing and fall in."

Kirito glanced over the edge of the bridge. "Oh, they stuck the Watcher down here and made it an optional battle? I wonder if the area's minibosses are Cave Trolls or something like that…"

"Heads up!" Ash yelled from behind, and the two of them looked back to see two golden streams of light heading in their direction. They instinctively dodged – and the lights flew right past, impacting the ground ahead of them and raising a giant wall of earth that blocked their path.

" _Shoot!_ " Leafa said quietly, having not recognized the Earth Power analogue for what it was. "Don't bother attacking it. It's high-level earth magic, requiring strong elemental spells to break."

Ash didn't seem to hear her, though; instead, he sought out the wall's shatterpoints and attacked them with a series of Rock Smash attacks. The wall began fracturing, but just before it broke the Salamander mages raised up another one in front of it.

"Looks like we gotta take out the mages before you can take out the wall." Kirito commented wryly. "Hey Leafa, you think going around it would work?"

"That depends. Ash, have you researched Breathing yet?

"No, sorry." he apologized. "I didn't think we would need to fight underwater, so I kinda skipped that one."

"I guess that means our only option is to fight." Kirito said, turning around and gripping his sword resolutely. "A showdown against at least one fire-wielding magic user on an underground bridge, huh? It's too bad we don't have a Balrog to fight for us – unless…"

He dashed towards the three shield users in front, zweihander held high. "Cover me while I test their defenses, and be ready to shield on my signal. I have an idea!"

The bridge shook as he hit the shield wall, and Ash immediately set up an Aqua Ring for Kirito as the Salamander mages retaliated, healing their tanks as well as offensively firing spells at the Spriggan. Leafa chipped in with her own healing spell, too, and though Kirito's health came close to the yellow it never quite made it there.

 _All right, now that I know that won't work, time to pull out that other strategy and confuse them so they're less prepared._ Kirito thought, intending to try and physically force his way through the shield wall by means of sheer Strength.

Instead, Serena walked up behind him and began performing a Teeter Dance, wings humming to create an odd syncopated melody that matched her (deliberately) wobbly steps. Thanks to her Serene Grace ability, ALO's system doubled its range of effect and threw the entire Salamander squadron into Confusion.

They were still lucid enough to attack, though, and they all focused on Kirito since he was the more immediate threat. "All right, shield me against this next attack!" he ordered, mentally reviewing the incantation to the Illusion spell. Each of them cast their own shield over him – a Defend Order from Leafa, an Aura-blue Protect from Ash, and a Light Screen from Serena. The fire attacks burst on the shields from all sides, creating a vortex of flame several meters high, and Kirito recited the spell, focusing as hard as he could on the image of a giant, Balrog-like monster.

What resulted was only due to the fact that ALO was based on SAO's data: it took his desire to be seen as a monster like that, combined it with his massive Unarmed skill stat, and Incarnated that desire by giving him the form of the Gleam Eyes from Floor 74. The downside to that was, it magnified the effect of his aggressive mindset on his avatar's movement and minimized the input from his rational thought processes. So instead of being both strong _and_ intelligent like the Floor Boss, Kirito!Gleam Eyes was more a mindless machine of destruction, roaring and slashing at whoever got in his way.

The tactic was very definitely effective, though. The Salamanders' shield wall was decimated within thirty seconds, and the mage group behind them only took about twenty. The leader himself decided to take his chances jumping off the bridge rather than face Kirito head-on. Soon, there was only one enemy left, and Kirito's giant chimaeral form grinned maliciously as it prepared to snap the Salamander's neck and reduce him to a Remain Light like all the rest.

 _STOP!_ a loud voice rang out in the minds of everybody nearby – even the players _within_ the city of Legrue, thanks to how much power Serena had put behind her mental shout. It broke through Kirito's rampage, though, returning his mind to its normal snarky self, and he dropped the player before shrinking back down in a giant cloud of smoke.

Leafa's katana was almost instantly in the Salamander mage's face. "Tell us who sent you, or else!"

The player turned his face away haughtily. "Threaten me all you want, but it won't make me squeal."

"Really, Sis?" Kirito said, stretching as he strode out of the smoke. "You do know you're supposed to offer both the stick _and_ the carrot, right?" Ignoring Leafa's indignant sputtering, he knelt down next to the Salamander. "That was a good battle – in fact, if I had been alone, you guys would have kicked me into next week."

"Kaz – er, Kirito, why are you telling him that?" Leafa protested, sheathing her katana anyways.

"It's a guy thing." he answered, waving her off. "You wouldn't understand. Anyways, these are all the items and Yuld I got from kicking you guys' butts. Just tell us who sent you, and this could be all yours…"

"Really?" the Salamander deadpanned. "And you won't just kill me afterwards?"

Kirito gave him his best used-car-salesman grin. "You have my word."

"Eh, what the heck. I've been getting tired of the others waving those items in my face like having them made them superior, and it's not like I know anything important." the mage decided. "Our leader GTACS called us together to hunt down the players who creamed Kagemune's lancer squad yesterday – and seeing you fight, I understand why he thought we needed twelve people. Orders from the top, something about 'those meddling kids can't interfere with our plans' or something."

"But how could what we're doing interfere? The Salamanders aren't trying to clear the World Tree, are they?" Leafa wondered aloud.

"I don't think so. One of our analysts figured that we'd need to equip the entire army with top-tier equipment in order to even have a chance, and we don't nearly have enough funds for that. Come to think of it, maybe that's what the big group headed north when I logged in was doing – looking for a dungeon to raid for funds. But that's all I know, honest."

"Well, you kept your word, so I'll keep mine." Kirito dragged all the items from the drop window into a trade window and sent it to the Salamander. As the man walked back across the bridge, silently cheering as he appraised his new loot, Kirito turned back to his sister. "You know, I've kind of got the feeling that this is related to the situation back in Swilvane. We should hurry up and get to the city so you can check back with Recon in real life."

His comment was punctuated by the sound of the wall shattering, and they looked over to see Ash hunched over with his hands on his knees. "Man, that took more out of me than I thought it would…"

"Hold on a moment. You broke that wall with your bare hands?" Leafa asked incredulously. "Between that and Kazuto's performance a few minutes ago, I'm almost convinced that I'm dreaming! By the way, how did you transform like that? The Illusion spell doesn't usually work that well."

"Yeah, well most people who try don't have an Unarmed combat skill over 950, do they?" Kirito countered. "My memory's a little foggy, though. I remember using the spell, getting really big and losing my sword, and swatting at people to attack them, but aside from that it's mostly just a big blur. I really felt like a monster during that time…"

"And you acted like one too, Daddy!" Yui interjected. "You even bit one of them in half!"

Kirito chuckled. "Oh yeah, I do remember that now." His grin then grew mischievous. "You wanna know how he tasted?" he asked Leafa in a sing-song tone.

Leafa tried to say no, but Kirito wasn't listening. "It was sort of smoky, but kind of crisp, too – just like barbeque meat right before it gets burnt on the grill…" he continued, getting a kick out of her rising disgust.

Leafa dashed forward and shoved her hand over her brother's mouth. "I swear, Kazuto, if you say one more word about it…"

Even though he knew it was a really stupid idea, Kirito was having too much fun riling up his sister to stop. "Fine, I'll just see if different races have different flavors, then." he responded, grabbing her wrist and pulling her hand off his face. Holding it still, he bit down playfully on her fingers, taking care not to actually hurt her.

Ash winced. "Ooh, even I know that's a bad move."

Leafa's anger levels shot through the roof, and she retaliated with a Frustration-powered slap to his face. "YOU JERK!"

"I totally deserved that…" Kirito muttered, rubbing his face and lapsing into silence as they finished crossing the bridge.

* * *

Omake: Yer a Wizard, Gandalf!

* * *

What resulted was only due to the fact that ALO was based on SAO's data: it took his desire to be seen as a monster like that, combined it with his massive Unarmed skill stat, and Incarnated that desire by giving him the form of the Gleam Eyes from Floor 74. The downside to that was, it magnified the effect of his aggressive mindset on his avatar's movement and minimized the input from his rational thought processes. So instead of being both strong _and_ intelligent like the Floor Boss, Kirito!Gleam Eyes was more a mindless machine of destruction, roaring and slashing at whoever got in his way.

He quickly decimated the Salamander party and turned to take on his own team, the Cardinal System's direction of his pent-up aggression setting him against his former allies. Even Serena's psychic efforts to reassert his regular personality failed, and the wall behind them remained unscathed.

A loud screeching echoed through the chamber, and Ho-oh flew in carrying an old raggedy hat in its claws. It dropped the hat into Ash's hands, told him to _"use it wisely,"_ and smashed its way through the ceiling, allowing sunlight to shine down onto the bridge. Confused, Ash took a closer look at the hat – and was surprised to see the end of Sir Aaron's staff sticking out of the opening. He pulled the weapon out of the Hat, which he then plopped on his head in order to hold the staff with two hands.

"YOU SHALL NOT PASS!" he roared in challenge, slamming the staff on the ground and pulsing Aura through it in a Bulldoze attack. As the giant monster stumbled, tripping over the edge of the bridge, its snakelike tail shot out like a whip and grabbed Ash, dragging him down after it.

Ash managed to grab onto the edge of the bridge, but he felt the structure weakening as the monster down in the water began to pull at his other ankle as well. His eyes flashed up to the circle of sunlight, and then over to the shimmer that its exposure was generating on Serena and Leafa's wings.

"Fly, you fools…" he whispered, letting go of the bridge and falling down into the water.

Underneath the surface, the bloodthirsty look on the pseudo-Gleam Eyes' face turned to one of horror when it realized that Ash and the game's Watcher analogue could breathe underwater, while it had only the air in its lungs.

 _Well, I guess that plan was a bust…_ Kirito thought as he waited for his Remain Light to disappear. _I just hope that somewhere, in some alternate universe, it actually worked._


	8. Chapter 6

**.**

 **Aggressive Negotiations**

(Ep 19 Part 2/Ep 20)

* * *

 **A/N: Since today is the birthday of my younger brother (whose imaginative tendencies helped inspire me to write the first story in this series and is also a consistent reader), you get a bonus chapter to go with tomorrow's regularly scheduled update. And to anyone else who happens to be reading this chapter on/near their own birthday, a merry birthiversary to you!**

When Leafa logged back in about ten minutes later, she looked extremely distressed, setting off alarm bells in Kirito's head. After all, they had just survived a twelve-on-four attack from the Salamanders, so what did she still have to be worried about? "Hey, what's wrong, Sis?" he asked in concern.

"My faction leader is in danger, and even though I may be a Renegade, she's still a friend." the Sylph explained. "I really wanna go help her, but I already promised to escort you to the World Tree, and I don't wanna have to choose between friends and family like that…"

"Then don't." Kirito stood up from the table, re-equipping his sword. "I'll just come with you. It's only a few hours' flight back here from Swilvane if we fail, and I can spare at least that much time."

Ash nodded. "Serena and I are coming too. With the four of us, we might stand a chance."

"And don't try to talk us out of this." Kirito added, recognizing what she was about to say.

Leafa sighed and shook her head. "The four of us against close to a hundred Salamanders? I wish I had your optimism… But anyway, let's get going – I'll explain on the way." She dashed off, pausing at a signpost before following the path denoted Valley of the Butterflies.

The others ran after her, and once they caught up she started talking. "You know how that guy earlier said something about a massive group of Salamanders headed north? Well, they are on a mission to get funds, just not by clearing a Dungeon. Instead, they're going to try and PK the Sylph and Cait Sith leaders while the two of them are meeting to discuss an alliance. If they manage, they'll be able to both prevent the alliance and legally steal most of the two races' money in taxes."

"Is that so?" Kirito's eyes flashed dangerously. "Then we've got no time to lose. Based on the path you took, I'm guessing they're in the Butterfly Valley area?" At Leafa's nod, he glanced at Ash and Serena. "You two can keep up, right?"

Another nod, confirming his mind-reading hypothesis even further. "Okay then, Leafa – grab on tight." He extended his hand, and his sister gripped it firmly. "Yui, navigate for us, okay?"

Yui saluted. "You got it, Daddy!"

Serena grabbed ahold of Ash, and the Spriggan and Undine activated their Sprint skills simultaneously, dashing off at a velocity bordering on Extremespeed. At the same time, Ash called out Greninja, sending him an Aura instruction to help clear them a path if monsters showed up. A few times, groups of Cavern Orcs did spawn in their path, but a dual-bladed Cut from Greninja was enough to open up a channel through which they could safely run.

Leafa didn't notice, with how tightly her eyes were closed, but she _did_ notice when the sound of their footsteps vanished and she began falling. She hurried and spread her wings in a glide, looking back to see a horde of monsters slipping on a puddle of water and falling out of the cave exit to their dooms. "That was… amazing!" she breathed, having calmed down enough to recognize her adrenaline buzz.

"And so is that." Kirito replied, indicating the view in front of them. At the center of a massive, bowl-like valley formed by the surrounding mountains, an even taller tree shot up toward the heavens, its leafy branches reaching out in every direction as if trying to catch the stars on their tips.

Of course, the fact that it was midday in-game somewhat lessened the effect – but Yggdrasil was still awe-inspiring nonetheless. _Man, it'd be a real shame if that thing's programming broke down_ … Kirito thought, before waving away the ridiculous notion his imagination supplied about setting ALFheim's server data into a loop until the World Tree could be fixed. Returning his attention to the matter at hand, he turned his head to address his sister.

"So, which way is the Butterfly Valley from here, and how much time do we have left?"

"Well, the meeting's scheduled to end in about twenty minutes, and it's in that mountain pass right there." she told him, pointing to a break in the mountains to the northwest of them. "We don't know how close the Salamanders are, so our best bet is to just fly there as fast as possible."

Kirito nodded. "Got it. Yui, watch for big groups of other players, will you?"

"On it, Daddy!" Yui chirped, landing back in his coat pocket. With an exertion of will, they accelerated to their maximum allowed Speed and began flying towards the pass.

* * *

After several more minutes of flying, a plateau came into view through the clouds. If he squinted, Kirito could just make out a table with several occupied chairs around it sitting up on the plateau.

"Daddy, I found them!" Yui said urgently, pointing down in front of them. "Sixty-eight Salamanders flying in formation towards the fourteen at the table. Collision between the two groups calculated at about fifty seconds."

Leafa did a quick estimate in her head. "Darn it, that's too far away – we can't fly any faster than this, and we're farther away than they are!"

Kirito _hmm_ ed in thought. "Guess we'll have to settle for damage control. Unless…" He looked over to Ash. "Any of your trademark out-of-the-box ideas coming to mind?"

Ash was about to say no, but then one sparked in his mind. "The Speed penalty is only in effect if you have your wings out, right?" he asked Leafa.

"I think so, but that's just because nobody would be stupid enough to try and reach that speed without wings… oh, I think I see where you're going!"

Ash stopped and hovered in midair, grabbed Serena by the hand, and indicated for Leafa to link up on her other side with Kirito on the end. "Okay then, once we get going you two deactivate your wings and we'll Fling you towards the plateau." Anchoring himself on a platform of Aura, he and Serena whipcracked the brother-sister team in a circle and sent them rocketing towards the Sylph-Cait Sith players. He then switched his energy into solidifying the platform and making it large enough for Serena to stand on, and they deactivated their own wings so Serena could telekinetically push them past the Speed limit.

The Salamanders had just reached the plateau when Kirito and Leafa arrived, and while Leafa slowed down, Kirito took the opportunity to interrupt the standoff with a high-speed Superhero Landing™. Thanks to the stat boosts from his new equipment (and a last-second wing flare), it only shaved off about a tenth of his HP – well worth the extra dose of awesome it gave his entrance.

Taking advantage of the stunned silence, he whispered the incantation for an Illusion spell that would spread his voice throughout the entire area (intended for use in conjunction with Smokescreens or Haze to confuse the opponent). As the glow faded, he yelled at the top of his lungs. "EVERYONE, STAND DOWN!"

"…what the heck?" a dark-haired Sylph woman wearing a circlet muttered. She did another double take as Leafa landed next to her. "Hold on a moment. Leafa, what are you doing here?"

"No time to explain, Sakuya." she responded. "But right now, your safely rests entirely on his shoulders."

"A Spriggan?" Sakuya questioned. "You have _got_ to be kidding…" Before she could say anything else, though, Kirito spoke again.

"I DEMAND TO SPEAK WITH YOUR COMMANDER!" he announced, chuckling inwardly when he remembered the last time he had bluffed an opponent like this. Unfortunately, sixty-eight Salamanders were a far cry from the low-leveled orange players of Titan's Hand, and he was relieved when the commander decided to humor him and emerged from within the ranks.

His high-quality equipment and stony visage made him a very intimidating opponent – but after the Gleam Eyes, the Fatal Scythe, and the Skull Reaper, Kirito was hardly fazed at all. He flew up confidently to meet the commander halfway, and the Salamander gazed at him with contempt.

"A Spriggan, huh? You got some serious moxie coming out here like this, kid. Before I kill you, would you mind telling me why you're on such a fool's errand?"

"I'm an ambassador for the Spriggan-Undine alliance." Kirito bluffed. "I'm assuming that this attack is an open declaration of war against all our races?"

Sakuya and Alicia Rue, the Cait Sith leader who was with her, looked to Leafa for an explanation, and she did her best to wordlessly communicate that she was as clueless as they were. The leader of the Salamander party, on the other hand, smirked at Kirito.

"You say you're an ambassador, yet you came here without an escort? I'm not so sure I believe you…"

"As a matter of fact, I _do_ have an escort." Kirito retorted. "I just sped on ahead of them to try and defuse the situation so that our trade negotiations could go through. If you interrupt the negotiations, though, the Alliance won't hesitate to bring the fight to you, and you'll be in for a world of hurt."

The Salamander scoffed. "With that mid-level junk you seem to think is appropriate gear? Not likely. Tell you what, if you can withstand my attacks for 30 seconds, I'll take your claims seriously." He pulled a large red broadsword from its sheath, one that almost matched Kirito's in size but far surpassed it in quality.

"Well, that's mighty generous of you." Kirito snarked, drawing his own sword and holding it in a one-handed guard position.

Sakuya, on the other hand, was much more apprehensive. "Your friend's in big trouble." she told Leafa, staring at the Salamander's sword. "That's the Demonic Sword Gram his opponent is holding – it requires a Two-handed Sword skill level of 950 just to equip, and there's only one Salamander I know who's strong enough to use it."

Leafa gasped. "You don't mean…"

Sakuya nodded. "Yep. That's General Eugene, generally regarded to be the strongest player in the game. With his strength and his brother Mortimer's strategies, the two of them together almost never lose a fight."

"I'm more worried about the sword…" Ash cut in, having landed unnoticed alongside Serena. "Something just feels kind of off about it, but familiar at the same time. Does it have any kind of special abilities or something?"

His question was answered when Eugene charged in, the sunlight that his sword reflected temporarily blinding Kirito. The Spriggan swung his sword up to block – and Eugene's sword passed _through_ Kirito's defensive strike, scoring a solid hit and throwing him backwards into the side of a cliff.

 _Of course!_ Ash realized. _It feels familiar because its special ability gives it Ghost-typing like Honedge and Aegislash!_

Alicia Rue the Cait Sith nodded. "That was Ethereal Shift, the special ability of Eugene's sword. It allows him to bypass any defenses in his way – so there's not much hope for your friend."

"I wouldn't count him out just yet." Serena countered, pointing to where Kirito was emerging from the massive dust cloud his impact had raised. "Besides, he just has to survive for thirty seconds, right?"

Up above them, Kirito asked the same question after a flurry of attacks against the Salamander general. Eugene just smirked in response, taking advantage of the brief pause in Kirito's offense to strike with Ethereal Shift again. "Changed my mind, kid. The only way this is gonna end is if one of us kicks the bucket."

Sakuya frowned. "I have to agree with Alicia on this one. Without a matching-tier weapon like the Holy Sword Excalibur, Kirito has no chance against Eugene when he's wielding Gram."

 _A high-level sword, huh?_ Ash thought, racking his brain. _It's too bad he doesn't have Elucidator or Dark Repulser… Eureka!_

* * *

Over at the Snowbelle Pokémon Center, Bonnie sneezed. "Aw man, I hope I'm not getting sick…"

* * *

Back inside ALFheim, Ash closed his eyes and began to focus. While he had not spent enough time examining either of Kirito's swords to learn their structure, he _was_ able to recreate his own Heart of Justice sword back at Restaurant Le Wow, and it was still frontline-level equipment when the game was beaten. Instead of a pure Aura-based replica, though, he infused it with the energy from his MP bar to make it recognizable to the Cardinal System.

Everybody else's eyes were on Kirito and Eugene's fight, so none of the audience members other than Serena noticed what he was doing. Kirito himself noticed, since Eugene had his back to the Sylph/Cait Sith contingent, and he timed his next dodge to try and get a closer look. When he looked again, the blue glow in Ash's hands had faded – and there replacing it was Ash's signature sword from SAO. Ash looked up at him and winked, burying the tip of the sword loosely in the ground next to himself.

Kirito immediately cast a Smokescreen, diving down to retrieve the Heart from where it stood. "Thanks for that." he said quickly, before his Aura signature shot up towards the sky.

Eugene grunted, launching a Defog with a swipe of his massive sword. "Nice try, but all you did was buy yourself a few seconds!" he growled out, scanning the area. He was surprised to see nothing, briefly entertaining the thought that Kirito had turned tail and fled. "Tch. Figures – all bark and no bite."

A whistling sound from above disillusioned him of that notion, and he shielded his eyes to look upwards. Above him, a small black dot that was rapidly growing larger stood out in stark relief from the white glow of the sun. As it grew closer, it resolved into the form of Kirito, his Black Iron Greatsword held out in front of him in a one-handed grip. His left hand trailed behind him, sunlight glinting off its contents, but the deep blue color of the sword made it hard to distinguish from the surrounding sky at that distance.

 _So he's gonna try and beat quality with quantity, eh?_ Eugene mused silently. _Well, good luck trying to coordinate two swords at once, kid. I've tried that before, and it doesn't work too well._ He charged up towards the descending Spriggan, easily maneuvering such that Gram's Ethereal Shift would pass through the zweihander and into Kirito's unprotected neck. He could see Kirito's secondary sword starting to move, but in order for it to reach a defensive position fast enough, the kid would have to drop his guard with the other sword, leaving him just as unprotected against Gram as before.

So of course Eugene was surprised when Kirito somehow managed to deflect Gram's attack. The Spriggan immediately followed it up with his lowest-level Dual Blades skill, Double Circular, and Eugene activated his armor's Flame Shield ability to give himself some breathing room. He ran back through the sequence of events in his head, his eyes widening in shock when he realized how Kirito had bypassed Ethereal Shift. By performing a thrusting attack with his defensive weapon at the instant Gram shifted, he negated the Defensive Weapon flag that allowed Gram to phase through his sword.

 _Lucky break, kid, but it won't work twice._ the Salamander resolved, darting back in and swinging Gram at Kirito's left side. The Spriggan seemed to rely on his right hand more, which meant that his left hand would not have the dexterity required to counter Ethereal Shift in the same way.

He didn't need to, though; by beginning his swing early enough, Kirito was able to push back Gram far enough to bring his Greatsword around to block once the Heart was slowed to a halt and flagged as a defensive weapon. Each time Eugene attempted to Shift his sword again, Kirito countered it cleanly with his dual blades, and the Salamander general began to feel nervous. If anything, the upstart young Spriggan he was facing seemed to be _stronger_ when wielding two swords than one! He hated to admit it, but he had come to rely too much on Gram's ability, and when confronted with its weakness it came back to bite him with a vengeance.

His next attempt at guarding was just a hair too slow, and Kirito's greatsword darted past, its massive weight combining with Kirito's speed to instantly send Eugene's HP into the yellow zone. Kirito left no room for his opponent to counter, executing a textbook Vertical Square with his other sword that severed Eugene from shoulder to hip and caused him to erupt into a Remain Light.

Awestruck silence reigned over the plateau for several seconds, but it was soon broken by the sound of applause from Sakuya at the spectacle that had just taken place. Not even the highest levels of the races' fighting tournaments had ever reached the combined level of speed and precision that Kirito and Eugene's duel displayed, and the applause quickly spread throughout the entire audience – Sylph, Salamander, and Cait Sith alike.

Kirito caught Ash's eye and nodded almost imperceptibly towards Eugene's Remain Light, tossing Heart of Justice back to him as he did so. Ash nodded back, stowed the sword in his Inventory, and extended his hands towards the red flame while reciting the incantation for one of his Revival Magic spells. Upon the spell's execution, the flames writhed and twisted before bursting to reveal the form of the Salamander general.

As his avatar reconstituted itself, Eugene stretched his limbs with a contemplative grunt. "Well done." he congratulated Kirito, turning to face him. "You're the strongest player I've fought in a long time, and the first I've met who can use two swords that effectively."

Kirito chuckled. "Thanks. You're not too shabby yourself."

Eugene cracked a grin at Kirito's massive understatement. "To think the Spriggans had someone like you in their ranks, and none of them sold you out to make some quick cash. I guess there's more to this world than I first thought…"

"So does that mean you're willing to believe him?" Ash interrupted, sensing an opening in the conversation. "Are you willing to call off the raid?"

Eugene turned his gaze to Ash, studying him carefully. "And you are?"

"If I may, sir…" one of his captains interrupted, taking off his helmet to reveal that it was Kagemune. "You remember how my party got wiped yesterday? Well, this Spriggan and that Undine were both there – and according to Agent S, the team sent to neutralize them was wiped out."

"Is that so...?" The corners of Eugene's mouth turned up in a smirk. "Consider this your lucky day. Neither I nor my brother wishes to declare war on the Spriggans and Undines at this moment, so we will withdraw for now. I will say, though, I look forward to being able to fight you again sometime in the future. No politics involved, just a contest of strength and skill."

Kirito nodded, holding out his fist. "And you're not the only one. Truce?"

"Truce." Eugene bumped fists with Kirito, and then with a sharp wave of his hand he led the Salamanders back through the pass.

* * *

"You really are crazy, you know that?" Leafa said, standing beside her brother as the Salamanders flew away.

"No, no I don't." he deadpanned. "I'm glad you're around to remind me about that stuff."

The sound of a throat being cleared interrupted them. "Not that I'm not grateful, but _what_ the _heck_ just happened here?" Sakuya asked in a no-nonsense tone.

Leafa explained what she had heard from Recon: Sigurd had been meeting Salamanders in secret, trapping Recon with a paralyzing arrow when he discovered them, and he had leaked the information about the meeting to his contacts, which was how the Salamander army knew where to go. On top of that, he had ordered the Tracker placed on Kirito's group that the ambush group down in Legrue had been following. The only thing she couldn't understand was why.

Sakuya's answer filled in the gaps for her. For all Sigurd's talk about racial loyalty, he craved power even more, and he couldn't stand having fallen behind the Salamanders. With rumors going around about a Reincarnation system in an upcoming update, he had more than likely agreed to betray Sakuya in return for being able to become a Salamander himself once the update rolled out.

When Alicia Rue used her Moonlight Mirror spell to contact him, he all but confirmed their suspicions with his response. He tried blackmailing Sakuya to leave him in power, claiming that her popularity would take a massive hit, but she decided that officially Banishing him would be worth whatever PR cost it incurred.

Once the Mirror faded, Sakuya attempted to thank Leafa, but she protested that she had done almost nothing, and that it was Kirito who deserved the credit. Sakuya evidently agreed, offering Kirito her sincere thanks – but Alicia Rue had a question she wanted answered first.

"That whole Spriggan-Undine ambassador thing…" she said cattily, adopting an appropriately feline expression of innocence. "You just made it up on the spot, didn't you?"

Kirito, much to Leafa's surprise, didn't deny it. "Even if I did, it doesn't make it any less true." he countered, singling Ash out from the group. "I'm a Spriggan, he's an Undine, and we're allied, aren't we? Technically, I _was_ an ambassador for the Alliance – all two members of it."

Sakuya facepalmed, and Leafa took it a step further with a complete facefault. "You're crazy." they chorused exasperatedly. Alicia, on the other hand, decided it would be a good time to turn up the charm.

"I dunno, I think maybe the Cait Sith could use a little more of that kind of crazy…" she mewled, sauntering up to him and grabbing his arm. "It's a pretty comfy gig – three meals a day, snacks, and a nap every day you want. So what do you say, Mr. Tall, Dark, and Handsome?"

After her initial shock at Alicia Rue's boldness, Sakuya decided to try that tactic for herself. "Don't forget, he partnered with a Sylph first, so we get dibs on him." she told Alicia, grabbing hold of Kirito's other arm. "I know a great pub back in Swilvane where we can have a drink and get to know each other…"

"All right, that's _it_!" Leafa shouted angrily, grabbing Kirito and dragging him away from the two faction leaders. "My brother is already taken, thank you very much!"

"Aw, that's too bad." Alicia pouted. "What about his friend, the Undine?"

In response, Ash and Serena held up their joined hands. "Been spoken for several months by now." he informed her. "And I wouldn't trade Serena for the world. Oh, and speaking of trades, we probably ought to do some sort of negotiations so that Kirito won't have been lying, even if nothing happens."

"Unfortunately, all I really have is Yuld…" Kirito put in. "Hold on – Leafa, didn't you say that this meeting was happening to attempt a run at the World Tree?"

Sakuya nodded. "Yes, but gathering forces would take the better part of a day, much less equipping them all with proper gear. We just don't have the funds right now."

"Then how's this for a trade? We offer you all the excess funds we have right now, and you guys come help us at the tree as soon as you can." He materialized the vast majority of the Yuld that had converted over to SAO, handing the bag off to Alicia. "Ash, Serena, and I each have about that much to offer, and nothing better to do with it."

The two faction leaders gaped at the amount of money that was in the bag. "But… but you could buy your own castle on prime land for this much! I don't see how you could have gotten this much without battling dozens of monsters in Jotunheim…" the Sylph stammered out.

Kirito waved her off. "Like I said, nothing better to do with it. Do we have a deal?"

"I suppose…" she replied numbly, still tallying totals in her head. "Why do you want to get to the top of the tree so badly, if you don't mind me asking?"

"I need to meet up with someone that I have no way of contacting in the real world." he explained. "And no, it's not this 'Fairy King Oberon' that I've heard most people are trying to contact. I don't care about the whole Alf thing, I just want to be able to talk to Asuna again…"

 _Someone on staff, I'm guessing_. Sakuya thought, deciding to leave well enough alone. "Okay then, we'll see you all in Arun." The Sylphs and Cait Sith took off, heading back for Alicia's territory to begin the process of gathering equipment for the raid.

* * *

Omake: Mechanics are Very Important

* * *

Up above them, Kirito asked the same question after a flurry of attacks against the Salamander general. Eugene just smirked in response, taking advantage of the brief pause in Kirito's offense to strike with Ethereal Shift again. "Changed my mind, kid. The only way this is gonna end is if one of us kicks the bucket. I must admit, though, you're a pretty Scrappy fighter."

Unfortunately for him, the Cardinal System detected his unintentional capitalization. Scanning Kirito's player data for any traces of a Unique Skill, it found the glitched-out remnants of Dual Blades and replaced them with a skill that matched Eugene's proclamation. If Kirito had opened his Skill window, he would have found a box reading [Scrappy: Passive Ability. Allows non-elemental and unarmed combat techniques to affect opponents utilizing Ghost energy to render themselves intangible.]

He didn't have time to open that window in battle, though; not with Eugene sending another swipe at him with his demonic greatsword. As Kirito shifted to block, Eugene activated Ethereal Shift again –

And his weapon was deflected with a _CLANG_ , the temporary Ghost-typing of the Shift nullified by Kirito's new Scrappy ability. With his greatest advantage nullified, Eugene was no stronger than the average SAO frontliner. And while this would have been sufficient against a normal opponent, Kirito was able to kick him to the metaphorical curb with little trouble.

"But… but how?" he stammered out, sitting flat on the ground with his HP deep in the red and his sword several feet away.

Kirito shrugged, keeping his sword pointed at the General. "I have no idea myself. That sort of thing just happens when I hang around with those two." He indicated Ash and Serena with a nod of his head, and they waved back cheerfully.

Eugene sighed. "Yep, I can see that. They're just that kind of person, aren't they?"

Kirito shook his head incredulously. "You have no idea…"


	9. Chapter 7

**.**

 **An Evolutionary Friendship**

(LN04 Chapter 5)

* * *

 **A/N: For those of you who do not get alerts when this story updates, I posted an extra chapter yesterday for my younger brother's birthday. You may want to go back and read it before you read this one, but there's nothing of critical plot importance specifically related to this chapter, so you can just as easily read it in anachronic order.**

"…Stupid, stupid, stupid!" Ash berated himself, whacking his forehead into his palm repeatedly. "How did I not notice that deserted town was an illusion? We were on top of a giant _monster_ , for crying out loud!"

Serena grabbed her boyfriend's hand, pulling it away from his face before he could destroy any more brain cells. "Don't be so hard on yourself, Ash." she told him gently. "All four of us missed it, so it's no more your fault than it is ours."

Kirito nodded in agreement. "If anything, it was my fault for trying to rush to a logout spot so Leafa wouldn't have to pull an all-nighter."

"And to be honest," the Sylph in question added, "I think this is exactly what the town was supposed to be for: a disguised entrance into Jotunheim. That would explain why your 'sixth senses' didn't detect anything odd. The biggest problem now is how to get out."

She opened up her map, which displayed the unexplored area as a humongous white circle with a few tiny markings in the southwest region where they were. "Based on what I've heard, the exits should be here, here, here, and here." she said, indicating the points furthest to the north, south, east, and west. "The south and west stairs are probably our best bet, but they're probably guarded by those Realm-class monsters we almost ran into a few minutes ago. Even General Eugene didn't last more than ten seconds against them, and that was with a twelve-man party."

"That strong, huh?" Kirito mused, obviously weighing his own chances in a fight. "So I'm guessing our best bet would be to join up with a specialized hunting party and follow them out?"

"You're right about that." Leafa answered. "Unfortunately, since they have to be so large, hunting parties down here are rare – and we'll have to stay out of the detection range of all the monsters while looking."

"I can handle the 'hiding from monsters' part." Serena offered. "One of my special abilities lets me deflect attention for up to a small party for several minutes, which can help us get past some of the places that don't have cover."

"Oh, is that the thing you did on the way to Legrue? I didn't realize the Pooka race had a spell like that, especially one that doesn't use music…"

Before Serena had a chance to explain that it wasn't a spell, the sound of thundering footsteps echoed through the shrine they were hiding in. With each footstep, the ground shook underneath them, and a loud keening noise followed in its wake.

Thanks to their Familiar Communication skills, Ash and Serena instantly recognized the keening noise as a cry of pain mixed with malicious grumbling laughter. Yui's following comment only confirmed their suspicions. "Daddy, there are two Realm-class monsters fighting each other nearby – and one of them sounds hurt!"

Kirito's curiosity overcame his caution, especially when he saw the looks on his friends' faces. "I suppose it wouldn't hurt to go check it out." They exited the shrine, only to come face-to-face with a three-headed Jötun Frost Giant attacking a smaller creature that looked like a cross between a jellyfish and an elephant.

 _"Mama… help…"_ the beleaguered creature whimpered as it attempted to fight back. Unable to use most of its appendages without sacrificing mobility, it weakly slashed at the Jötun but was easily repulsed.

 _"Foolish creature."_ the giant growled back, though only Ash and Serena could understand it. _"Your doom is inevitable, no matter how hard you struggle."_

Leafa was horrified. "We need to help it!" she burst out, quickly clarifying that she meant the one who was being bullied.

Ash was about to call out Charizard to help, hoping that the Fire/Ice type matchup would be enough to counter the giant's size advantage, but Kirito's response stopped him. "Ash, you're an Undine – do you sense any water nearby?"

"Yeah, there's a frozen lake over there, but…" His gaze fell on the beleaguered monster, and it clicked. "Right, if we can lure the giant into the lake we can level the playing field!"

Kirito nodded. "You three run to the other side while I get its attention." He pulled out a throwing pick and went through the motions for his highest-damage single shot skill, launching the pick in between the Jötun's eyes.

This sufficiently enraged the giant, and it turned its attention to Kirito and Leafa. It took no notice of Ash and Serena (thanks to Serena's Notice-Me-Not), who had crossed over to its former prey and begun healing it, instead charging after the Spriggan and the Sylph. Heedless of the danger, it lumbered out onto the frozen lake, concerned only with the annoying insects whose sting had caused it such pain.

Its expression quickly turned to horror when the ice cracked under its weight, and it quickly dropped two of its four swords in order to use those arms to stay afloat. The newly-healed elephant/jellyfish hybrid followed it in, and it quickly became clear that the playing field had been more than leveled. _"This for hurting Brother!"_ it yelled, constricting the Jötun with a Wrap attack and barraging it with Thunderbolts until it shattered. The giant's demise was heralded by a trumpeted victory call, tinged with a note of hope.

"Well, she certainly seems friendly enough…" Ash commented as the now triumphant beast climbed out of the lake and approached them timidly.

 _"You save me, very thankful."_ she told them, reaching out with her trunk to touch them. _"I help you back?"_

"Not unless you know a way out." Serena answered. "We need to get to the stairs so that we can rescue her brother's partner from the top of the World Tree, but I don't think you can help us with that."

 _"She helping Brother? Then she my Friend. I know Life Tree exit – I take you!"_ The creature picked them up with her trunk and set them on her back, heading towards the center of Jotunheim. As she moved, the roots of the World Tree slowly came into view above them, surrounding a gigantic inverted spire of ice in the center.

"I wonder, is this some sort of quest?" Kirito mused. "Something unlocked by choosing the side of this creature in the battle, maybe?"

Leafa checked her HUD. "If so, it's more of an open-ended Event quest. And it kind of feels wrong calling… her, I think you said? 'this creature' – we should give her a name." Their transporter didn't object, and so she and Kirito bandied a few names about before settling on the name Tonkii (the name of an elephant in a book they had read as children).

 _"Friend Sylph call me Tonkii? Never known anyone with name before transformation – very honored to receive name."_

Leafa scratched her behind the ear flaps as Ash and Serena translated, chuckling. "Thanks, Tonkii. My name's Leafa, by the way."

The next fifteen minutes or so passed quietly, only broken by the occasional greeting between Tonkii and the other Realm-class beasts they encountered. Based on the way they interacted with each other, the group soon surmised that the Jötuns and the beasts did not get along, but that the beasts mostly ignored those who were not their kind.

When Leafa asked Tonkii if they were right, she nodded affirmatively. _"Mama always says not to fight each other, because evil cold-men want to get rid of us all. Hoping someday they go back down into big hole they came from."_

"Wait, do you mean that big hole right there?" Kirito questioned, pointing at the chasm Tonkii was approaching. Its walls dropped off at a perfect vertical, the light fading quickly from the icy blue of Jotunheim at the top to an impenetrable veil of black down below. It was as close to bottomless as the game could have – not even Yui's mapping capabilities could detect the code for a floor anywhere within the chasm.

 _"Mama said so, yes."_ Tonkii answered, settling down next to the cliff until her legs were completely enveloped underneath her carapace. _"I sleep now so I can bring you to Tree stairs above."_ Her skin Hardened, to the point where it was almost cocoon-like, and she became inert.

"So there's an exit above us, huh?" Leafa said, gazing upwards. "I wonder if it has anything to do with that giant icicle up there…"

Kirito looked up, and his eyes widened. "Wait, is that a dungeon inside that giant icicle? Maybe that's what the 'befriending a monster' event is for – to be able to get up to the dungeon!"

"I wouldn't be surprised." Leafa replied. "After all, the Jotunheim area has only been around for about a month, and hardly anyone has explored it since then…"

"We'll have to discuss that later." Ash interrupted. "Serena and I just detected a group of players approaching, and they seem dead set on eliminating whatever creatures they come across, regardless of how aggressive the monsters are."

Kirito's mouth set itself in a firm line. "Well, they're not gonna kill Tonkii – not if we can help it. If we die, we'll just head out from Swilvane again."

"A noble sentiment." the raid party's scout announced, dispelling his invisibility spell and walking up to them. "Unfortunately, sentiment has no place down here. If the Realm-class monsters of Jotunheim are allowed to freely attack virtually defenseless players, survival of the fittest dictates that we return the favor. I may not be able to get revenge on the one who wiped the rest of my party, but your 'friend' here will serve as a suitable substitute. If you stand aside now, though, we'll let you go unharmed."

"Sorry, but we can't let you do that." Ash said, replacing his currently-equipped sword with Heart of Justice. "Tonkii's our friend, and friends don't go around abandoning each other to people on a misguided quest for revenge."

The Undine scout frowned. "If only we had a warrior of your resolve in our own party, perhaps we would have stood a better chance. But if you and your companions have chosen to be Renegades, then so be it. Mage team, begin your support spells!"

* * *

As the Undine mages began buffing their teammates, Serena began a Lucky Chant under her breath, the spellwords in her chant creating a shield of energy around her teammates' weak points. It might not shield them completely, but it would last for a long while and prevent the opponents from landing any critical hits.

That, combined with her Light Screen and Ash's practice manipulating projected energy, was what saved their lives several times over. After a few attempts at attacking physically while the mages focused on Tonkii, which Ash and Kirito handily rebuffed, the mages and warriors switched targets, expecting the group to be less experienced at defending against magic attacks. Less experienced, however, did not mean less prepared, and Light Screen's protection against energy-based attacks was able to lower the damage to survivable levels. When their HP came close to dangerously low, Ash managed to siphon off the healing energy targeted at the Undine warriors and redirect it to their own group, which had the added effect of lowering the attackers' survivability at the same time.

About two minutes after the fight started, both sides' health had fallen into the red. The mages had given up trying to heal the fighters who weren't attacking Tonkii, and hijacking so much externally-produced energy had begun to take its toll on Ash – he had enough in him for maybe one more round of healing, but that was it. Serena's head was pounding from the strain of shielding for so long, and Kirito and Leafa were both getting physically exhausted. Any little advantage could turn the tide of battle, and any disadvantage would spell failure. Even Tonkii's protective shell had several large cracks running along it, regardless of all the times her Sleep Talk had called for a Harden.

And it was out of those cracks that a bright blue light began to shine, expanding to cover the entire battlefield. The shell disintegrated into a gray cloud, white particles of Mist combining with the black dust of a Haze to cancel out all buffs and debuffs and prevent any new ones from being applied. In its place, the swirl of blue light took shape into Tonkii's evolved form. What had formerly been tentacles made for swimming in water now looked much more like a Grass-type's vines, and she now had four sets of massive wings that enabled her to move around on land.

With a triumphant cry of _"take that, you dirty scumbags!"_ she released a Parabolic Charge onto the massed Undine forces, decimating their formation and restoring her own HP to full. The bravest of those who remained created a shield wall, attempting to do as much damage as they could before dying. The mages they were protecting began to chant spells, only to flinch as Tonkii used Astonish to startle them. _"Boo!"_

Their composure quickly broke, and they retreated at high speed. Sensing Leafa's desire to avoid pointless deaths, Tonkii declined to chase them, instead trumpeting an exuberant _"and stay out!"_ at their retreating backs. Ash cast his one final healing spell as she turned back to them, he and Serena collapsing in exhaustion immediately afterwards. _"Are your companions okay, Friend Leafa?"_ Tonkii asked, nudging them curiously with her trunk.

"Sorry, but I can't understand you like they can." Leafa apologized, patting one of her appendages reassuringly. "If you're worried about them, they're just tired. They must not have been used to the mental strain that comes with using Magic for extended periods of time, I guess, but whatever spells they used helped us survive."

 _"You're tired too."_ Tonkii declared, picking up the four of them and _plop_ ping them on her back. _"I'll take you to the exit now – relax while you can."_ Her wings began fluttering, and she took off towards the massive icy pyramid above them.

Kirito chuckled, making himself comfortable on her carapace. "Thanks, girl." he said, rubbing her furry coat gently.

Since her two translators were pretty much out of it, Tonkii decided to show Kirito and Leafa the general layout of the Thrymheim dungeon hidden within the giant icicle, including the entrance to the dungeon and the Jötun guards within. For a moment, Kirito was tempted to just charge in by the possibility of retrieving the Holy Sword Excalibur, but common sense won out and he resolved to instead come back later with a larger group.

* * *

After a fond farewell between Leafa and her new friend, the four adventurers climbed their way up the stairs into Arun just in time to hear the System Message about the game's weekly 4 AM maintenance. Since it was scheduled to last until noon and all four of them were exhausted, they decided to find a cheap Inn and log out so they could actually get some rest.

Charizard was a bit miffed that he hadn't been used in the fight, but his time in the Charicific Valley had taught him enough self-control to admit that he wouldn't have been quite as much use against all that Water magic. True, he could have powered through a lot of it and endured the increased damage, but if he had tried to move in closer they would have been able to overwhelm him numerically.

Pikachu also managed to talk him out of complaining by pointing out how tired Ash and Serena were – any negative comments would only serve to irritate them. Of course, that issue soon became moot, as the two of them zonked out almost as soon as they had the helmets off and their heads back on the pillows.

They didn't wake up until about 11:00 the next morning, when they were almost jolted off the cots by the aftershocks of a massive explosion. Instantly on high alert, they rushed down the stairs to defend Clemont's Gym in his absence, only to realize that the explosion had come from within the main battle chamber itself, which had the [Gym Battle in Progress] indicator lit up.

Ash immediately facepalmed. "Of _course_ that's what it was. I've gotten so used to thinking of this as Clemont's lab that I kinda forgot it was a Gym too…"

"That's understandable." Serena reassured him. "After all, we did spend almost two years thinking of Prism Tower as the lab where our bodies were and not the Lumiose Gym, so it's no wonder that's the first thing we associate it with."

"Yeah, I suppose you're right. I wonder who's challenging the Gym, though…"

His question was answered when the light blinked off and Charizard walked out the door, feigning nonchalance even though he looked half-spent. _"See, I told you I could solo the Gym! You've got a long way to go before you can steal my spot as team powerhouse."_

 _"I'm not_ trying _to…"_ Greninja sighed, following behind him and throwing away an empty popcorn box.

 _"You may say that, but I know your type."_ Charizard insisted hotly. _"Ninjas are sneaky, right? That means you're going to try and sneak your way into the top spot while pretending to not care – but it's not gonna work! I'm on to you…"_

 _"Look, can't we just agree that each of us has different areas of specialization and leave it at that? After all, Pikachu and I may have higher speed and DPS than you, but we have less durability, Goodra is much more defensively oriented, and Hawlucha is almost exclusively a close-range fighter where Braixen works better at a distance. Need I go on?"_

 _"…What the heck is DPS?"_ Charizard asked with a confused look on his face.

"It's a gaming term." Ash interrupted, drawing their attention. "It means Damage Per Second, and it refers to the ability to consistently deal similar amounts of damage over an extended period of time. You, on the other hand, would be called a 'burst fighter' or something similar, since you rely on large 'bursts' of damage with larger gaps in between."

Charizard considered the information he had just been given, before growling in a very obviously put-upon manner. _"And I suppose what you're gonna say next is that 'a balanced team needs both'?"_

"Actually, I was just answering your question. That is a good point though – having the right mixture of different fighting styles makes it a lot easier to adapt to unexpected situations. Heck, it doesn't even have to be fighting! I mean, what do you think would happen if my traveling companions were all pants at cooking like I am?"

Charizard shrugged. _"Meh. Can't be worse than the generic Pokémon food that Liza had to bulk-order in order to feed all the Charizard at the Valley. Or that time during the Battle Frontier when someone pranked me into eating May's Purple Surprise…"_

"Well, yeah." Ash conceded. "I suppose if you've lived through that, you can survive almost anything… wait, why did I suddenly feel as if I was in danger for a couple of seconds?"

"Because you just insulted a girl's cooking, that's why." Serena informed him, shaking her head. "That's something you should never do – even professional Kalosian food critics know that criticizing food and insulting it are two different things."

Ash nodded. "Good to know. But why did you feel the need to specify _Kalosian_ food critics? Do Kalosians have a tendency towards insults or taunts or something?"

"You'd better watch what you're saying…" Serena said sweetly, the contrast between her tone and her words somewhat off-putting. "After all, you are _dating_ someone from Kalos, aren't you?"

Ash responded with a look of fake shock. "Wait, I am? I wonder who that could be…" He pretended to think. "I mean, the only dad I've talked to here is Meyer, Bonnie's way too young for me, and – no offense to Clemont, especially since it looks like he's got something going on with Korrina – I'm not that kind of guy…"

 _"That's it, I'm leaving."_ Charizard announced. _"Even if you're not playing tonsil hockey, this is getting way too sappy for my tastes."_

"Tonsil hockey? What's that?" Ash asked, genuinely confused. "And how do you know what it means?"

 _"What what means?"_ the Fire-type attempted to deny, realizing what he had said. _"I most definitely did not come across that term in a fan-written story on the internet after being introduced to the genre by Squirtle back at the lab."_

"Wait, Squirtle reads fan stories? I would have though he was more into those TV shows about giant robots…"

 _"That's what the ones he reads are about."_ Charizard informed him. _"I mean, that's what I think I would see if I read over his shoulder. Which I don't."_

 _"Uh huh."_ Greninja remarked dryly. _"So you were using Clemont's lab computer this morning for absolutely no reason whatsoever?"_

 _"Of course not!"_ Charizard answered indignantly.

A smirk tugged at the corner of Greninja's mouth. _"Thank you. That makes things so much clearer."_

Something about the ninja's tone of voice didn't sit right with Charizard, and he replayed their exchange in his mind before what he had actually said dawned on him. _"You… you… well played."_ he admitted grudgingly, stopping next to a [Wet Floor] sign and holding out his hand for a handshake. As soon as Greninja leaned over the sign to reciprocate, though, Charizard pulled his hand back in an attempt to make him overbalance. _"Haha, psych!"_

Braixen's stick bopped him on the nose, boomeranging back to her outstretched paw as she stabilized Greninja with the other. _"Both of you behave!"_ she admonished them. _"Remember, we have a big battle coming up, and we all need to be in top form."_

Greninja visibly sighed at her words, but obviously didn't want to argue with her. _"If you say so…"_ He perked up as an idea occurred. _"But if we end up on opposite sides of a huge horde, am I allowed to Taunt him again so that he turns into an unstoppable juggernaut in an attempt to make me shut up?"_

Charizard mulled it over for a few seconds. _"…That would actually not be overly disagreeable. As long as I got to show off my strength in the process, I could_ probably _forgive you afterwards."_

A sweatdrop formed on the side of Braixen's face. _"I suppose I'll have to take what I can get."_

* * *

Omake: The Difference of One Vowel

* * *

That night, Kirito dreamed of a sword. Almost a meter in length and adorned with fairy-script, the blade seemed to hold an unspoken promise of victory. The blue adornments on its hilt contrasted with the gold of the crossguard, and the blade itself seemed to glow with its own golden light.

The name _Excalibur_ drifted into his mind, a name fully befitting the otherworldly beauty of the sword he beheld. _And just as well_ , he supposed, having not yet realized that he was dreaming. _After all, if RECT drew on ancient Norse mythology to design the game, why not include modern English mythology too? The sword of the legendary King Arthur, which in conjunction with its scabbard rendered its wearer nigh unbeatable…_

Almost as soon as the thought entered his mind, the image of a scabbard appeared alongside the sword. Rather than being a standard unadorned scabbard, though, it took on a form worthy of its companion, with an ornate twisting pattern of blue and gold making its way down from the mouth to the tip. He felt the impression that what he saw in front of him was actually generated by his subconscious in order to match the sword next to it, but he didn't argue when it assigned the title _Avalon_ to the scabbard.

He reached out his hand impulsively, in order to even feel the slightest touch of the Holy Sword he had seen in Jotunheim – only to freeze in shock when his hand gripped the hilt. Somehow, he could tell that it was _not_ in fact the same sword frozen beneath Yggdrasil, if only due to the fact that the energy he felt within the blade was enough to utterly _destroy_ the World Tree if fully unleashed. No matter how lenient the developers were, they would not have programmed a single weapon with the power to utterly alter the entire Map of ALFheim. _I must be dreaming!_ he realized, immediately directing his brain to execute the processes that Aincrad's Internal Alarm Clock system used to wake up players.

Kirito opened his eyes groggily and sat up in bed, blinking and rubbing the sleep out of them. "What the heck was up with that...?" he muttered, shaking his head to clear it. As he did, his eyes landed on another person sitting at the edge of his bed, and he grabbed the shinai he had started keeping beside his bed with one hand while turning on the lights with the other.

When the room lit up, it revealed that the figure sitting on his bed was a small blonde woman in blue and silver armor, her hair done up in a semi-elaborate bun. He tried to halt his strike, only for her to swing her empty hand in what he immediately recognized as a defensive counter-strike that somehow severed his bamboo sword in two.

"Good, you're awake." she said, releasing her clenched hand with a _whiff_ of dissipating air. "I ask of you, are you my Master?"

Kirito, as befit a swordsman of his caliber, responded with only the most dignified of answers. "The heck…?"


	10. Chapter 8

**.**

 **Assault on the World Tree**

(Ep 22/23)

* * *

The group reconvened in Arun after lunch, all rested and ready for a rumble. Leafa was momentarily nonplussed by Yui's choice to yawn whenever she exited her "sleep mode," especially when the pixie randomly mentioned that Kirito's yawns lasted eight seconds on average, but she wasn't as confused as she might have been thanks to her previous interactions with the lifelike AI.

Kirito, on the other hand, facepalmed when his adoptive daughter passed on that piece of knowledge. "Anyone _else_ have random pointless trivia they'd like to share?" he groaned, not expecting anyone else to take him up on the offer.

Surprisingly enough, nobody actually did. Perhaps the universe had not felt the need to subvert his expectations – or perhaps it had felt that its normal methods of doing so had become too predictable and decided to subvert _that_ expectation by doing nothing. Either way, the next few seconds were spent in an incredibly awkward silence, which was eventually broken by the sound of Leafa clearing her throat.

"Um, as… _informative_ … as this may be, I thought we were trying to get to the World Tree as soon as possible, weren't we?"

Kirito blinked owlishly. "What? Oh, right. C'mon, let's go." He led the small, yet diverse, band of Fairies from the Inn out onto the streets of Arun. "Hey Yui," he asked, turning to address the pixie on his shoulder, "what do you think the fastest route to the Tree's entrance would be?"

Ash raised his hand to point out that they could always walk straight towards the Tree and then travel around its edge until they found the gate, but Kirito dismissed him without looking. "Not even gonna consider it. I know better than to listen to _your_ navigational suggestions."

"Hey, I'm not THAT bad!" Ash protested. "…anymore."

Kirito pretended to be shocked. "Wait, you mean you can actually walk down a straight hallway without getting lost now?"

"Really?" Leafa deadpanned. "What kind of idiot would –"

Her statement was interrupted by Ash's next response. "Oh come on, it was just that one time!"

The entire group came to a stunned halt. "…Are you saying you _actually got lost_ in a _straight hallway_?" Serena asked incredulously.

"In my defense, I _was_ only six or seven at the time." he answered. "And now that I think about it, it was kind of your fault too."

"What? But how could it – wait, was that back at the summer camp when we first met?"

Ash nodded. "Yeah, it was right after the closing ceremony. I saw you walking back towards the girls' half of the camp lodge with your mom, and decided to see if you were still okay. Unfortunately, I got distracted by all the cool pictures in the hallway, and then the next thing I knew I was in the kitchen."

"…I don't know whether to feel happy that you were actually thinking about me back then or annoyed that you're blaming me for you getting lost."

"Oh, definitely happy. You're a lot more pleasant to be around when you're happy than when you're annoyed."

"But isn't that usually true no matter who you're talking about?" Kirito cut in. "Besides, you could always consider it training for the whole 'for better or worse' thing, couldn't you?"

Leafa shoved him playfully. "Kazuto! Just because you decided to get married this young, even just virtually, doesn't mean that's normal!"

"Hey, I never _said_ it was normal!" he retorted. "But you do raise an interesting question: how old are those two really? Whenever I try and come up with an answer, the first thing that comes to mind is '10 years old,' but I _know_ that can't be right…"

"Come to think of it, I'm not completely sure myself." Ash realized. "I mean, I've traveled all over at least five different regions since I first turned 10 (taking about a year apiece), and then we spent about two years in Aincrad, but thanks to some kind of weird science thing that I don't understand I only physically aged about two weeks' worth during those two years…"

Kirito _humm_ ed thoughtfully. "So does that mean you're about two years older than me, or about the same age…?"

Before anyone could come up with a satisfactory answer, Yui darted out of Kirito's pocket with an alarmed look on her face. "That Player ID up above us – it's Mommy's!"

Kirito stiffened, the previous conversation all but forgotten. "Yui, are you sure about that?"

"Yep, her location data says she's within this region of the world's Floor Map, but up in the branches of the tree!" she responded, pointing up towards the clouds. "Unfortunately, it also says there's a Field Boundary in between us, which means you can't just –"

The Spriggan didn't hear her last sentence, having already darted up at high speed towards the cloud barrier. _Should we go after him?_ Ash asked Serena. _After all, if I was in a similar situation I'd probably do something stupid to try and get you back…_

 _Well, it looks like Leafa's following him, so we'd best stay as a group._ she answered, activating her wings with a thought and chasing the siblings upwards. Just before they broke back into open skies, though, they heard the resounding gong-like noise of a rebounded impact. It even caused the clouds around them to ripple slightly, much like the invisible barrier Kirito was pressed up against when they arrived.

"It's no use!" Leafa told him, attempting to drag him back. "The barrier prevents any physical objects from passing up through it and there are no magic spells with the range to reach the branches, so there's no way you can get past!"

"Wait, are you saying that spells can pass the barrier?" Ash asked, the seed of an idea germinating in his mind as his fingers absently brushed the hilt of his Heart.

"Yeah, but like I said, none of them lasts long enough to make it very high."

Ash's face hardened resolutely. "That's all I needed to hear. Kirito, I want you to think as hard as you can about Elucidator, okay? The weight, the balance, how it felt to swing it – everything you can think of about it." _Serena, I need you to channel those memories over to me as unchanged as possible._

"Okay, but why?" Kirito wondered as he followed Ash's instructions.

"Just trust me. And Yui, you try and get Asuna's attention so that she's watching." The Undine placed his hands up against the barrier, closing his eyes as he began channeling his Aura into a series of circuits through which his Mana could flow. A set of words came to mind, and he instinctively whispered them as he began his improvised Projection spell. "Trace, _on_."

* * *

 _The "Demon Sword" Elucidator – created to be a sword unmatched by its peers._

 _And yet, being a sword, it still shared the same "polygon wireframe" basic structure as all other Cardinal-generated weapons._

 _Forged of a metal that, until Floor 75, had only been found in weapons dropped by Floor Bosses._

 _Its strength equivalent to a sword forged by a Blacksmith with near-maximum skill – the same skill used to originally create the Heart of Justice._

 _Remaining Kirito's weapon of choice from its time of acquisition through many an upgrade and an adventure, growing in strength as he did._

 _All that experience made manifest in the Black Swordsman's memories, which Ash's link with Serena allowed him to imbue directly into the concept._

 _Pushing himself past the normal limits of his techniques, surpassing the normal rough constructs that he created to match each detail to Kirito's memories._

* * *

As these thoughts flashed through his head on repeat, a long, thin shape began to materialize several inches above his hands. Since said hands were pressed flat up against the altitude barrier, the resulting construct actually formed _above_ the barrier, passing through in the form of Spell Energy as it joined itself to the sword. Within a few seconds, the shape solidified – into an almost exact replica of Elucidator. Since it was only made with ALFheim's Spell Energy and not reinforced with Aura, it was somewhat degraded from the original, though; it would only hold together for thirty seconds maximum before dissipating.

But that was okay. Thirty seconds was plenty of time for it to fulfil the purpose Ash had planned for it. "Serena, NOW!" he yelled when he felt the construct had reached maximum stability.

Having sensed his plan as she transferred over Kirito's memories, Serena immediately grasped the fake Elucidator in a telekinetic grip and launched it skyward as hard as she could. It quickly vanished into the mist, speeding up towards the branches of the World Tree.

"Okay, what the heck _was_ that?" Leafa demanded, feeling totally lost. "I've been playing this game for about a year now, and none of the spells I've heard about have anything to do with creating weapons out of nothing! _Especially_ not if the weapon can pass through a Game Boundary afterwards…"

"Technically, it didn't pass through the Boundary." Yui piped up. "It didn't become Daddy's sword until after it was already on the other side. That was a great idea though, Uncle Satoshi – now Mommy will know that we're on our way!"

"It looks like she already knows." Kirito interrupted, pointing upwards to where two glittering objects could be seen falling out of the clouds. The first, larger item vanished in a shower of polygons as it approached the barrier, leaving only the small rectangular card to fall into Kirito's hands. "After all, what do you think the odds are that something like this was just sitting in the branches and then knocked loose? Not likely. I bet Asuna threw this down to let us know that she knows we're here. I wonder what it is, though…"

Yui placed her hands on it to take a look, and she gasped when she realized what it was. "This is a GM access card! It can't really do anything but bypass Quest Prerequisite Requirements without a console, but that means she almost managed to escape by herself. After all, this isn't the sort of thing that you would deliberately give to a prisoner. And now that we're helping from the outside, she's sure to get out this time!"

Kirito's eyes hardened. "Then we don't have a moment to lose. Yui, point us towards the dome entrance." He immediately dove downwards, angling himself to take the shortest route possible.

"Oh come on!" Leafa complained as she followed him down. "I get that we have to rescue her and all, but I still want an explanation for what just happened!"

* * *

She had to settle instead for a promise that it would all be explained later, since they now had definitive proof that Asuna was trapped above them and that time was therefore of the essence. After all, if _she_ had been transferred over to ALFheim when SAO was cleared, odds were very high – to the point that they considered it almost a certainty – that the 300 other players were also trapped in the game.

In order to verify that conclusion completely, though, they would have to actually make it up to the top of Yggdrasil, which was why the small group of Fairies now stood in front of the massive gate leading inside its trunk. A pair of gargantuan stone statues stood at attention, one on either side, their swords forming an X-shaped barrier in front of the doors.

 **"Many before you have tried and failed to reach the King's castle above."** a majestic voice announced from within the right-hand statue's rocky armor. **"Do you believe you have the fighting spirit that they lacked, enough to pierce the mysteries of the heavens guarded by the warriors within?"**

Charizard snorted from within the Inventory. _"Piercing the heavens? Fighting spirit? Sounds like whoever wrote this dialogue has the same tastes in TV as Squirtle…"_

Kirito's jaw set resolutely, having not heard Charizard's comment. "Yes, yes I do. And even if my own self-confidence falters, I believe in the strength of my friends – who also believe in me."

His words hung in the air as the stone guardians stood contemplatively. Neither withdrew their sword, though, causing the Spriggan to wonder if he had said something wrong.

"You have to hit the Accept button, doofus!" Leafa sighed, bopping her brother lightly on the head. "And to think you're the gamer out of us two…"

"Oh, right." Kirito rubbed the back of his head sheepishly, pressing the button with his other hand. The two knights returned to their idle poses then, allowing the massive doors to swing open.

 **"Go, then. Show that you are worthy of the power of flight, and the King shall grant you its full capacity. If not, you may return once you have become much, much stronger."**

 _Now why does that last line feel like it should be familiar?_ Ash wondered as they made their way into the interior. _It sounds like something you would say to invoke a massive stat boost or something…_

 _Oh, like Greninja's special form?_ Serena asked, having picked up on his thoughts. _I wonder if that would have happened if you hadn't practiced your Aura abilities beforehand._

 _Probably so._ Ash answered as he applied a defensive buff to the group. _Thinking back, it looks like the bond was developing even back when he was still a Froakie – the biggest problem would have been managing the synchronization. And even now, it still feels sort of like we're not using it to its full potential. It's too bad that Alain dude got called away by the guy sponsoring him right before he could Mega-Evolve his Charizard…_

 _Well, you're probably gonna run into him again at the League, and I wouldn't be surprised if he was one of your last opponents there._ Serena encouraged him, finishing up her Lucky Chant as Leafa cast a Wind-based Speed boost. _But we can worry about that later. Now, we just need to focus on getting Asuna free._

Since Kirito was the tankiest of their group (though that wasn't saying much, since they were all either DPS or support-oriented players) he took the lead as they flew upwards. The dome was large enough that that wouldn't have to worry about maneuvering space as they fought – in fact, it almost seemed large enough to hold a thousand players if they really packed themselves in – but it also meant that if they got separated by mobs it would be hard for the lone player to rejoin the group.

Speaking of mobs, the Tree's guardians seemed oddly underpowered for something considered the "hardest challenge in the game." Each one only took two or three strikes to eliminate, and their AI seemed more set on blocking the path to the top than actually trying to deal damage. Of course, they _were_ spawning from inside the almost innumerable alcoves set into the dome wall, which suggested that the higher you got the more of them would appear to block you.

Yui confirmed this, pointing out that the decorative gargoyles every few levels had the secondary function of detecting Player proximity (allegedly to scale the difficulty based on the size of the assault party). The difficulty potential of this strategy soon became clear, as the Tree Guardians began to change tactics as soon as they passed the halfway mark. Now they not only spawned at a faster rate, but several of them hung back in order to attack with long-range attack spells.

Thankfully, the Light Screen that Serena generated between them and the largest group of archers was able to create a small safe zone. It didn't last long, though, because the archers caught on to the fact that staying massed together was ineffective and began to try and flank the group. Some of the knights even began throwing their swords in an attempt to hamper the assaulting players' mobility – after all, if they stopped to extract the swords and stop the DoT they would be sitting ducks for the other sword-throwing Guardians.

 _Well, it looks like it's time._ Ash thought, constructing an Aura Barrier around himself so he could access his Menu. "Pikachu, Meteor Climb those swords!" he instructed as his partner appeared in a flash of blue light. He took a quick look around at the number of NPCs they were facing, noting that they appeared to be constructing a blockade behind the perimeter the archers had established. "Hawlucha, Talonflame, you two work on taking out those archers. Charizard, Noivern, Greninja – you try and thin out the wall up there."

Each of his Pokémon nodded their approval before heading off to their assigned tasks, Greninja vaulting off the Guardians' heads with Aerial Ace-powered feet to gain the appropriate altitude. This almost spelled Leafa's demise, as the sight of Ash summoning Familiars out of nowhere (two of which were _dragons_ , of all things!) shocked her so much she forgot to defend herself.

A loud _crash_ right in front of her face snapped her back to reality, though, and she blinked just in time to see a panda with red sunglasses punching one of the Guardians' swords away from her. It immediately used the momentum from the collision to vault overhead, sending a pulse of Dark energy down past a pink-and-white creature with ribbons attached to attack a Guardian coming from beneath. As her gaze automatically tracked it, she saw Serena giving her a thumbs-up in her peripheral vision. _I guess that's why they decided to save their explanation for later…_ the Sylph surmised, tightening her grip on her katana. _So I've gotta make sure I can survive long enough to hear it!_

She risked a glance upwards, only to see that the holes in the wall above were being filled almost as quickly as they were formed. There was _just_ enough of a gap that she could see the quadruple-leafed door at the top of the dome every few seconds, but the closer they got to the top the less often that view came. If they continued at the rate they were going, the wall would be all but impassable by the time they reached it.

Kirito had come to that same conclusion as well, pulling back slightly to address the whole group at once. "Okay guys, it looks like our best bet is to charge through the wall as quickly as possible. Do your Pokémon have any super-high-powered attacks that could create a larger weak spot we could exploit?"

Ash nodded, fending off another Guardian's assault as he did so. "Yeah, but we probably ought to wait until we're already moving to have them attack so that they have less time to reinforce. And if we're gonna do _that…_ " At an unspoken signal, Serena created a shield of Psychic energy around him as he Projected a more stable copy of Elucidator for Kirito to wield. "Then we should make sure we go all out." _Charizard, Noivern – as soon as you see Greninja's signal, attack where he does with Overheat and Boomburst, then follow us through the gap._

Kirito accepted the sword from Ash, a look of reminiscence washing over him briefly as he adapted himself to the use of his signature weapon again. "Right. On my mark – three, two, one… NOW!"

As they charged upwards, Ash opened the Synchronization Bond he and Greninja had developed, transforming the latter into his pseudo-Mega Evolution and giving him the knowledge of exactly where they were aiming and when they would arrive. The giant Water Shuriken on his back grew even larger, and he landed on one of the Guardians for stability as he launched it up into the wall. Charizard and Noivern's attacks impacted a split-second later, leaving a rapidly-filling crater that went two-thirds of the way through the wall.

The heat from the explosion washed over the four Fairies as they flew upwards, all but riding on the coattails of the combined attack. Kirito formed the point of their assault, his twin swords outstretched in front of him as he spun around like a drill. The other three covered his flanks, their formation rotating in the opposite direction in order to counter any Guardians who attempted to get in a hit by matching his rotational velocity. The Pokémon followed suit, those who could fly darting back and forth to pick off the enemies that came near while those who couldn't used the Guardians as stepping stones.

It was only the fact that eight out of the twelve attackers were not considered Players by the system that allowed them to break through; otherwise, the difficulty scaling function would have increased the Guardians' spawn rate to a level that was as close to impossible as the game engine could handle. "It's almost as if… the Quest… was designed to… be unbeatable…" Leafa panted as they stood in the reversed gravity at the top of the dome.

"That's because it was." Yui responded, shocking everyone. "The code used to program this door says that the Quest Requirement to open it is administrator access – a normal player would never be able to get past even if they reached it in the first place!"

"All right, that proves it. Something big is hidden up there, and I'd bet that creep Sugou is behind it all." Kirito said. "And it looks like those Guardians have noticed we're up here, so we've gotta do something fast."

"Already on it, Daddy!" Yui told him, diving into his pocket and pulling out the GM card. "This should let us get past the door. Uncle Satoshi, Aunt Serena, you two should return your Pokémon if you don't want them to get left behind." She transformed into her SAO form, eyes glowing green as she transferred the authorization code from the card in her hand to the door underneath the other. "Teleporting in three, two…"

The world faded to white around them as the Tree Guardians approached, those in the rear drawing back their bowstrings as the vanguard raised their swords. _"Better luck next time, losers!"_ Pancham yelled, returning to Ash and Serena's shared sub-Inventory in a wash of red light.

The sound of a virtual cuff on the head followed almost immediately afterwards as Braixen reprimanded him. _"I know they're NPCs, but that wasn't nice."_

 _"But it's my signature move!"_ Pancham complained. _"Or at least it will be once I evolve…"_

Greninja shook his head. _"Never argue with a woman, Pancham – it's useless, you can't win. Especially if she's got as fiery a temper as Braixen."_ His unintentional pun was met with facepalms from all the other Pokémon. _"What? Was it something I said?"_

* * *

Omake: Surpassing the Gate

* * *

As Ash looked up at the Gate above them, countless circular ripples spread through the expanse upon which he gazed. The point of a weapon emerged from each one, testifying to the vastness of the King's resources. Indeed, even a Heroic Spirit of superhuman power would be hard-pressed to survive, much less overcome, the odds their small team was facing.

And yet none had emerged from their hiding places, as if out of arrogance the King deigned to withhold his full strength. He wished to give his assailants false hope, only to dash it into oblivion as he increased his power _just_ enough that they could not survive. After all, to unleash his true power would mean that they would be his equals – and not simply mongrels for whom being his subject should be considered an honor.

But even if the King did not use his powers to their infinite potential, it would be best to prepare as if they were facing his full might. And what better way to counter infinite power than with another infinity? As with the Projection aria several minutes ago, a series of words rose unbidden to Ash's mind.

 _I am the bull of the sward._

 _Steel is my skull when through fences I run._

 _I have trampled over a thousand glades._

 _Ignorant of laws, so beware my Rage._

 _Using pain for Payback methods, when facing my Trainer's rival._

 _I have but one Weakness. Thus Fighting incites my wrath._

 _My whole life is: Unlimited Tauros Works!_

A wave of blue washed over the world – and suddenly, instead of in a massive dome of tree roots, they were standing at the edge of a bowl-shaped valley. Off in the distance, a very familiar Pokémon Laboratory showed that they were now somewhere outside Pallet Town. That observation was soon confirmed when the earth began to rumble, heralding the arrival of a massive herd of Tauros.

 _"We have been summoned!"_ the herd leader mooed, pawing the ground irritably. _"You boys know what that means?"_

A wave of expectant _whuff_ s swept through the assembled Pokémon, their enthusiasm clear to see. _"STAMPEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEDDDDDDDDDEEEEE!"_ They took off down into the valley, heedless of anything and everything in their way (up to and including the stone monolith that had taken the place of the portal at the dome's peak).

When the Marble faded, the site of the Grand Quest was a wreck. The Tree Guardians' summoning gates were damaged beyond use, and the way to the top of Yggdrasil sat wide open. Kirito stood there for a few moments, not sure whether to be dumbstruck at the ridiculousness or concerned that it seemed like something Ash would consider _normal_. "Well… that happened." he finally said, activating his wings and taking off to find Asuna.


	11. Chapter 9

**.**

 **A Showdown With a Faker**

(EP 24)

* * *

The hallway Yui deposited them into was very Spartan, with no distinguishing features whatsoever aside from the archways supporting the roof. And even then, they were all colored with the same uniform white as the walls – when combined with the fact that the doors blended seamlessly into the wall panels, their design turned what would otherwise have been a normal series of hallways into a barren labyrinth.

" _This_ is the fabled Palace of Oberon?" Leafa scoffed in an attempt to hide her annoyance. "First they make it so that nobody can even _get_ up here, and then they throw _another_ challenge at you by trying to get you lost?"

Obviously, her attempt had failed.

Kirito looked around at their surroundings, nodding in agreement as he did so. "Well, that's just further proof that Sugou's got something fishy going on up here. Yui, what's the fastest way out of here?"

Yui's eyes glowed green as she accessed her Navigational abilities – only to widen in shock an instant later. "There is no Map data for this area!" she gasped, grabbing hold of Kirito for support. "I can feel Mommy above us, but I can't sense anything else about this level!"

"Can you try to open all the doors at once, even for just a couple of seconds?" Ash asked her, materializing a Pokéball. "If you do that, then Noivern can use his echolocation to generate his own map of the area."

Yui shook her head sadly. "No, I can't open a door without touching it first. I need direct access in order to transmit the code."

Ash frowned as he digested this information. "Well, let's see what he can figure out from here, at least." He released Noivern with the signature effect of an equipped Item, instructing the adolescent dragon to gather what information he could about the tunnel-like hallway system they were in.

 _"Ooh, swanky digs."_ Noivern commented, ears twitching as they registered the irregularities in pitch and volume produced by the echoes. _"Bit too chill for me, though – dude could use some pizzazz to give it that last little bit of umph."_

The two Pokémon trainers facepalmed almost in sync. _Please tell me this is just a phase…_ Serena thought in exasperation.

 _I wish I could,_ Ash replied, _but I don't want to lie to you, no matter how unintentionally._ As he was doing so, a little twinge appeared in his Aura Senses, and he instinctively turned his attention to it. "Hey Noivern, can you try and see what's below us, too?"

 _"Sure, whatevs."_ He pressed his ears to the floor, initiating a low-powered Boomburst to stimulate vibrations in said material. _"Aw, dude, not cool!"_

"What? What is it?"

 _"Whichever dude designed that cave down there gave it loads of stalagmites, but they totally flaked on the stalactites! I mean, what kinda lame-o does that?"_

Serena's eye twitched. "Maybe someone who _doesn't_ belong to a species that lives in caves?"

 _"Pfft – nah. Everyone knows these things are made by nerds who spend their whole lives cooped up with their computers in small, dank crevices."_

Kirito blinked. "Why do I feel like I was just insulted?"

Ash ignored him, focusing instead on the first detail Noivern had mentioned. "Hold on, you said there were a bunch of stalagmites down there? They wouldn't happen to be evenly spaced out in rows, would they?"

 _"Yeah, why? Izzat important? I thought you'd be more interested in the elevator at the end of the hall…"_

"That's all we need to hear." Ash said, returning Noivern to his Inventory and garnering a look of thanks from Serena. "Looks like we were right, Kirito – whoever trapped Asuna has the other 300 players trapped on the floor below us too. Noivern says there's an elevator over this way, so let's get going."

Kirito nodded resolutely before walking quickly in the indicated direction, his stride lengthening until it turned into a run. He had to wait for Yui to catch up to actually enter the elevator, though, and each additional second seemed to stretch out into an eternity. As he waited, though, a thought struck him. _Wait, Ash said that the players were trapped in a cave underneath us, but Asuna's in a cage out on the branches, which means we can't get to both of them at the same time! I don't want to ignore them, but I also don't want to waste any time rescuing Asuna either…_

He was shaken out of his thoughts by a hand on his shoulder, and a glance told him that he had been moved into the elevator with the rest of his friends. There were three lights lit up on its control panel: the one signifying their position, the one for the cavern beneath them, and the one leading to the top. "You three go find Asuna." Ash told him as the elevator began moving down. "Serena and I will try to rescue the others while you get her."

Kirito mentally facepalmed. _Of course – I forgot we could split the party and still have safety in numbers._ He clasped Ash's hand thankfully, locking eyes with the Undine. "Got it. We'll come find you as soon as we can." He retrieved the GM access card from where he had replaced it in his pocket and handed it over as the elevator came to a stop. "Yui's got the code from this, so you should keep ahold of it just in case you find a console in there."

Ash nodded, taking the card and pocketing it himself. "Stay safe." He and Serena exited the elevator, almost immediately disappearing from Kirito's perception as they did so.

 _Why did I have my hand up as if waving again?_ the Spriggan wondered as the doors slid shut. _Oh well, not my problem._ He clenched his fist resolutely. "Hang on Asuna, we're almost there."

* * *

The passageway Ash and Serena found themselves in appeared identical to the one they had just come from, the only differences being length and direction. Rather than a long, gently curving hallway, it was straight and relatively short. At the end opposite the elevator, there was a plain white door that, as before, blended perfectly into the wall. If not for the fact that they _knew_ something was on the other side, they might have dismissed it as an area still waiting to be uploaded – but that knowledge allowed them to detect the hairline cracks outlining the door.

There was also a subtle flow of energy traveling from the door to a small area of the wall, which (as a bit of prodding revealed) served as a concealed set of door controls operated via touch. Attempting to activate it, however, resulted in the message [Warning: Area restricted to authorized personnel only. Present Access Code to abort lockdown sequence.] A 15-second countdown appeared, presumably to allow any GMs or Admins to materialize their access cards while simultaneously unnerving any would-be intruders.

Of course, that whole security measure hinged on the assumption that any access cards that weren't ID-locked remained inside the locked rooms, requiring the intruder to already _have_ access if they wanted to _gain_ access. However Asuna had gotten ahold of the card she threw down to them, she had unintentionally thrown a massive wrench into Sugou's plans. (His involvement was basically a foregone conclusion by now, since a cover-up as large as the one they faced would be all but impossible without help from someone at the top.) One tap of the card, and the doors slid soundlessly open to admit them.

They were halfway through the doorway when a voice rang out off to their left. "Hey, what's goin' on?" the giant Muk/Slugma hybrid-esque creature that had been fiddling with one of the "stalagmites" asked, eyestalks swiveling to stare at the entryway.

Another voice answered him from across the room. "The door opened, nimrod."

"Yes, I can see that." the first creature shot back. "What I _don't_ see is anyone coming through – but why would someone open the door and not come through? The boss is in a meeting, so it couldn't be him…"

The second creature scoffed, turning back to his own work. "That means it's just the hacker Noboyuki hired to idiot-proof security after that girl escaped yesterday. Finding loopholes and fixing them is _his_ problem, not ours. Our job is to finish the research so the boss can sell it and we can get paid, end of story."

Creature #1 sighed. "And how much do you think he'll keep for his own share? Probably a lot more than we're getting, that's for sure."

His partner didn't even blink at the accusation. "Welcome to the world of business, rookie. Now get back to work."

Ash and Serena were, quite justifiably, incensed by the scientists' callousness. Even if they hadn't been able to sense the scientists' goals, the mere fact that they were _experimenting_ on _live humans_ without their consent violated the basic standards of human decency. Unfortunately, though, the scientists' semi-solid avatars made it so that they could not be easily incapacitated – rendering direct confrontation inadvisable.

Thankfully, Serena's Notice-Me-Not served the two of them well in terms of stealth. Neither of the creatures so much as glanced their way as they snuck through the field of pillars, even when they were close enough to almost touch them. And soon enough, a large black cube came into view, spinning slowly as it hovered above the ground.

 _I recognize that pattern – it looks just like the System console down in that dungeon below Floor One!_ Ash realized, eyes flashing blue as he located the surface irregularity that corresponded to the Access Card's slot. _Let's see what all we can do now that we've got an actual console to use this with._

Not that much, as it turned out. While living in SAO for two years had given the two of them an ingrained familiarity with Cardinal's Menu system, the simple fact that neither of them was Akihiko Kayaba meant that they had only ever interacted with player-oriented Menu dialogs; as such, the feedback from the console was just as indecipherable to them as the glimpse Clemont had given them of Clembot's custom OS. And without the ability to navigate the Menu, they had almost no chance of figuring out how to free the trapped players.

But was Ash ever the type to give up when faced with insurmountable odds? (Actually, thanks to his time spent at Boss Strategy meetings in Aincrad, he had learned how to tell when the odds *were* actually insurmountable and it would thus be safer to escape. That was not so much giving up as it was a tactical withdrawal, though – and thanks to the variation of Future Sight that Serena used in battle combined with the 'danger alert' of Ash's Aura, the two of them together could jointly sense which actions would maximize their odds of success, minimizing the likelihood that they would ever reach that point. They had actually used said strategy in a Double Battle against Olympia, who commented that it seemed more like the way an Absol would fight, what with the Dark-type's ability to sense impending disaster. She also mentioned something about a metaphor being taken too far during a flashback, but neither of them had any idea what the Gym Leader was talking about.)

Disregarding the narration's extended tangent, Ash paged randomly through the menu's different options, tapping the 'confirm' button whenever any kind of dialog box appeared. Even if he didn't know what all the different abbreviations meant, he was bound to run into _some_ sort of positive result, right?

Wrong. After about ten seconds, Serena froze his hands in place. _Don't you feel it? You're hurting them!_ she scolded him, drawing his attention to the consciousnesses trapped in the pillars. Sure enough, his latest set of button presses had activated whatever brain stimulus program the scientists were using – specifically the settings that simulated pain and terror.

A wave of dread washed over the Undine. He had been so confident that trial-and-error would work that he had forgotten the very nature of the experiments being run, and now innocent people were paying for his mistake. If not for Serena, he might have even continued blindly onwards, no better than the scientists who were harming the trapped players deliberately. It would have been a lie to say he was more grateful than *ever* for her presence, but his gratitude definitely came close to that status.

 _"Allow me to take care of that for you._ " a disembodied voice suddenly announced from behind them, and the console screen began changing faster than a normal human could track. Immediately, all the captives' stimuli turned completely off and they began vanishing. _"I never intended for my technology to be used this way – frankly, this perversion disgusts me."_

"Hey, what's going on over there?" the senior of the two researchers yelled, Serena's SEP field insufficiently strong to account for the newest development. "Rookie, contact security while I investigate!"

 _"Oh no you don't."_ the newcomer announced. His intense (one might almost say knightly) delivery drowned out a weak protest of "My name's not 'rookie,' it's Steve…" before the console flashed and both creatures were immobilized. _"No help will be coming, I'm afraid."_

There was a brief pause, and then he spoke again. _"Well, no help for the two of you."_ With another flash of the screen, he opened the door to admit Kirito, Asuna, Leafa, and Yui. _"Hello again, all of you – and you as well, newcomer."_

The younger scientist's eyes swiveled around frantically on his frozen eyestalks. "What's going on? Nobody has the System Authority to do this except the Boss, and there's no way this is him!"

A small smirk grew on Kirito's face as he surveyed the situation. "I think you're forgetting one thing." he announced, equipping his Traced Elucidator and pointing it at the creature imposingly. "You guys built this game from a copy of the Cardinal System – the brainchild of Akihiko Kayaba himself. And you know how mad a creator gets when you try to play God, don't you?"

"But… but he's dead! We saw the news reports!" the creature he was focused on stammered.

His partner's tone of voice indicated that if they hadn't been frozen, he would have smacked him silly. "Idiot. Just because he's dead doesn't mean his login information is gone – the suits probably salvaged it when they were 'confiscating confidential evidence.' That girl we caught sneaking in here must have been a plant, sent to open a backdoor so they could shut us down."

 _"…Sure, let's go with that."_ Kayaba's virtual consciousness replied. _"But now that you know, I can't just let you leave. Not that I would anyways, with what you've been doing here."_ His focus drifted to the pillars jutting from the floor, now dull and lifeless. _"I believe it's time you had a taste of your own medicine, if only for a short while. Imagine: total sensory deprivation, unable to see anything, sense anything,_ _ **do**_ _anything."_ His next words sounded as if he was smiling wryly. _"Oh wait, you won't_ need _to imagine it. You'll be living it._ " A short manipulation of the console later, and both avatars had vanished as two solitary pillars _whirr_ ed back to life.

Leafa blinked, shaking her head as if to clear it. "Okay, I have to ask. _What the heck just happened?_ "

The virtual image of a man in a white lab coat materialized in front of the group. "Did your friend not already explain? Those men were perverting my life's work to achieve a dishonorable end. Exploiting every last facet of the NerveGear's potential to simulate a new reality, for the sole purpose of learning to control people's thoughts."

Leafa was understandably repulsed. "They trapped people here for _mind control experiments_? They deserve way worse than what you did to them!"

Another wry grin made it onto Kayaba's face. "You do know you're saying that to the man who imprisoned 10,000 people to fulfil his own childish fantasy of ruling a floating castle, right?"

Leafa froze. "But wait – the news reports… they said your brain was fried by the NerveGear! There's no way you could have survived that!"

Kirito chuckled. "Remind me to introduce you to the MCU when we get out of here. Maybe we could have a family movie night or something." He turned to Kayaba. "Not that I'm calling you an evil neo-Nazi scientist who plans to eradicate anyone who could cause trouble for his organization in the future. Even though you may have overstepped your principles when you trapped everyone in Aincrad, at least you never completely abandoned them."

Kayaba bowed. "Your candor is appreciated, as always." He then grew a smirk. "And anyways, didn't said organization end up revealing that the whole Nazi thing was just a front while they tried to rescue their mutant idol from an alien planet?"

"In the tie-in TV show of debated canonicity, maybe." Kirito shot back. "Depends on whether or not you're willing to accept a character who was seen dying by massive audiences being revealed alive again thanks to some kind of Deus ex Machina that ends up becoming an important plot point later on…"

Kayaba cleared his throat, prompting an awkward silence as Kirito realized how similar his statement was to the ex-designer's situation. It was soon broken by an impatient Leafa, however. "Enough with the nerd-fest already – let's get Asuna out of here before somebody finds us!"

"I think it might be a bit late for that." Serena told her. "Someone's headed through the door right now, and he appears to be incredibly furious."

Almost as soon as she finished speaking, the door slid open and a regally-dressed fairy rushed in, muttering to himself. "Useless morons. Two months of work, and then they lose it just like that! They had better have a" – whatever words he tried to say here appeared to be incompatible with ALFheim's language engine – "legitimate explanation for this, or else they'll wish _they_ were the ones trapped…"

His tirade ground to a halt as he turned the corner and spotted the group. Asuna immediately interposed herself between Oberon and Yui, grabbing Kirito's hand as she did so. The Fairy King immediately drew the connection between the Spriggan in front of him and the bratty weakling he had seen at the hospital and growled. "You little brat, thinking you can steal my prize out from under my nose. But no matter how many friends you have with you, there's no way you can best the King of the Fairi–"

"Sudo REVOKE admins FROM Oberon." Kayaba cut in, drawing an odd look from Kirito.

"You wrote your emergency backdoor access in _Linux_?" he questioned as Oberon frantically tried to access his administrative Menu (to no avail). "After creating a whole new programming language for Cardinal because you thought all the ones available were too restrictive?"

Kayaba nodded. "Not the most obvious decision, I must admit – but that was exactly why it worked. After all, who would think to look for an access point that ran on a completely different language? By the way, I have something I would like you to take a look at once this is all over that I've been working on in my spare time. Once word of ALFheim's involvement gets out, it could potentially save the VRMMO genre from dying in the fallout." In the background, Oberon gave up on the Admin Menu and tried to log out via his Player Menu, but Kayaba cut off that attempt with a couple of taps on the console.

Kirito winced when he realized the sociopolitical ramifications that two massive scandals in a row would have for VRMMOs, and he could tell that Kayaba genuinely wanted the genre to do well on its own merits. "I'll have to run it by some of my friends before committing, but I'll at least look at it." he agreed. "We probably ought to do something about that evil jerk first, though."

"Why, you –" Oberon abandoned the menu, deciding to attack with words instead. "You think you're so high and mighty, don't you? It's easy for you to be smug when you're the one with all the power – I bet you're afraid of a fair fight!"

Ash crossed his arms from the sidelines. "And how fair would it have been if _you_ had all the GM access, huh? I wouldn't call that 'equal standing,' would you?"

"He's right." Kirito interjected. "Those abilities are meant to be used for balance, not as the crutch you've turned them into." He gestured to the console behind Kayaba. "You mind?"

The man in the lab coat moved aside. "If you're planning what I think you are, go on ahead."

"System Trace: On. Object: Excaliber." Kirito announced, confirming his command with a tap of the screen. As the golden sword from Jötunheim fell into his grasp, he tossed it to Oberon. "Go on, challenge anyone you like. If you _really_ want, we could even lower the Pain Absorber level to make it more like a real-world fight. Winner takes all."

Oberon snatched the sword greedily. "Foolish boy. I accept – set the Pain Absorber to zero! Perhaps when I win, you all will learn to respect your betters!" When Kayaba complied, the Fairy King grinned wickedly. "I challenge the girl."

"…Which one?" Kirito deadpanned. "There's, like, three of them here."

"The one standing behind you right now." Oberon's grin turned smug, as if he had somehow outwitted them.

"What are you talking about? There's no one…" Kirito's voice trailed off as he looked behind him and saw Yui standing there. The tension in the room immediately skyrocketed. "…So planning to violate my fiancée and _actually_ violating the minds of three hundred players wasn't enough for you?" the Spriggan seethed, barely able to keep himself civil. "And now you want to bring my _daughter_ into it too?"

Oberon's mouth was obviously running ahead of his brain, as his next words proved. "You say she's your daughter? Even better – it'll be so much more devastating when her injuries translate into reality as well! And you did say I could challenge _anyone_ …"

Contrary to his expectations, this actually calmed Kirito down. After all, Yui _had_ no physical body to injure, which removed the advantage Oberon had hoped to gain with the Pain Absorber. The other reason he was able to calm down was Yui's own confidence.

"Don't worry, Daddy." she reassured him, grabbing his hand with one of hers while equipping a pair of black and white falchions with the other. "This turn of events was only to be expected, considering his fractured psychological state. And with as much sword practice as all of you have, I'm probably the closest to his skill level. Besides, my original purpose was to fix hurt minds – it only makes sense that I defeat the person responsible for hurting them."

That should have triggered warning bells in Oberon's mind, but he was so focused on ruining the lives of those who had ruined his work towards ruining others' lives that he paid no attention to little things like rational thought. "C'mon, girlie. Let's see where the brat's confidence goes when someone he cares about is in danger and he has nothing he can do about it!"

Serena spoke up then, though she knew it would be useless. "Um, sorry to burst your bubble, but isn't that exactly what you thought was going on when you first met him at the hospital?" _Speaking of which…_ She flicked her eyes over to Kayaba, indicating Asuna with a jerk of her head and projecting _police_ in his direction. The former paladin nodded imperceptibly, whispering a set of commands that dispelled Asuna's avatar in a flurry of particles that everyone else agreed was Somebody Else's Problem.

Meanwhile, Yui walked forward and took an open stance in front of Oberon, swords held loosely in her grasp. Kirito almost called out to correct Yui on her stance, but when he saw that the Fairy King had set himself up in an even worse fashion (and realized that any form of advice would probably be decried as 'unfair cheating'), he held his tongue.

As soon as they were signaled to begin, Oberon charged in recklessly, swinging Excaliber to aim for Yui's exposed wrist. Said wrist was not actually as exposed as it seemed, though; a slight shifting of her feet brought the black sword in her other hand right into the path of Oberon's blade, deflecting it to the side as the white one flowed past her opponent's own wrist in a carefully controlled miss.

And _flowed_ was the only word that could really describe the motion of the white sword – the gracefulness of its motion and the wavelike etching on the blade left no other options. While the red tortoise-shell etchings on the black blade suggested a tendency toward defense, its partner would, like a real wave on the ocean, flow through any chinks in its opponent's defense, eating away at it slowly.

As the fight progressed, Oberon growing cockier as Yui's attacks failed to connect, Kirito realized that she was actually leaving the openings in her defenses on _purpose_ , allowing her to control the fight by predetermining the locations of Oberon's strikes. The scene was almost comical: a grown man unable to land a hit on a girl half his size (and, technically, less than a _tenth_ of his age). _Where did she learn to fight like that?_ he wondered, unable to stop the niggling suspicion that he had seen that style of fighting somewhere before.

Kayaba chuckled nostalgically under his breath. _"I am the bone of my sword…"_ he muttered as the one-sided fight continued on. "It's nice to see that some series are still classics even now."

Kirito turned to ask him what he had said, but was interrupted before he could start by a meaty _thud_. He looked back to see Oberon laying limply on the ground, Yui standing above him with the pommel of a sword where his neck had been. The Fairy King was still conscious, but he appeared to be unable to move his body.

"You cheated!" he howled defiantly. "There's no way you could have paralyzed me without using magic or Admin privileges!"

"Fully understanding psychological health involves understanding the electrochemical reactions in the nervous system that result in certain behaviors, right?" Yui stated matter-of-factly. "All I did was temporarily prevent your brain from communicating with your spine using a precisely placed impact. It wouldn't have even worked if you hadn't turned off the Pain Absorber."

"But… but nerves don't work like that!" Oberon sputtered. "Even I know that much!"

Kirito waved his hand in a dismissive manner. "Chalk it up to the fuzziness of suspension-of-disbelief if you have to – the fact is, Yui won and you lost. And since I don't see Asuna here, I'm guessing she's already woken up and told the authorities about your involvement. Your game's up, Sugou."

The executive ground his teeth together (the only things he could actually move aside from his eyes). "You'll pay for this, _dog_." he threatened in an attempt to still feel superior. "And your little girl, too."

Before he could say anything else, his avatar vanished and a dialog box reading [DISCONNECTION] appeared in its place.

"It's gonna be kinda hard to back those words up from behind bars, isn't it?" Kirito snarked at the space where Sugou used to be. "And good riddance. C'mon, Yui – let's go see Mommy for real."

"Not so fast." Kayaba interrupted as the Spriggan opened his Menu. "You agreed to discuss something with me once the vice-commander was freed, did you not?"

His statement sparked a memory in Leafa's brain. "Wait a minute, you two still owe me an explanation for all that stuff earlier too!"

Ash chuckled mareepishly, rubbing the back of his head. "Yeah, I guess we do. You see…"

Kirito tuned him out as he began explaining. "So, this 'project': What is it? You said it could be the life or death of VRMMOs – what do you mean by that?"

Kayaba murmured a series of indecipherable commands, materializing a small egg-like object. "I call this the World Seed, and it is an open-source platform for companies to create their own VRMMOs from scratch. I want you to find a way to make it freely accessible, so that anyone with a dream of creating their own world has the chance to do so – no matter how rich or poor they are. It does not have the same capacity as Cardinal, in order to prevent others from repeating my mistake, but if properly used it could keep the genre from dying."

Kirito glanced over at Leafa, thinking back to how alive his sister seemed when soaring through the sky. If he had the chance to prevent her from losing that feeling, he would eagerly grab onto it with both hands. On the other hand, he also knew the value of not rushing blindly into things. "Like I said, I'll have to run this by my friends first, but if they don't have a problem with it I'll definitely upload this for you." He accepted the Seed and slipped it into his pocket. "Can I go see Asuna now?"

Kayaba nodded, beginning to fade away into particles. "Until next time, Kirito."

"Until next time." As his friends disappeared one by one, having finished their explanation and exchanged farewells, Kirito opened up his Menu and stared at the Logout button. _I'm going to actually get to *meet* Asuna in reality!_ he thought excitedly, and the world faded to white with the simple twitch of a finger.

* * *

Omake: An Epic Anti-Climax

* * *

As soon as they were signaled to begin, Oberon charged in recklessly, swinging Excaliber to aim for Yui's exposed wrist. Said wrist was not actually as exposed as it seemed, though; a slight shifting of her feet brought the black sword in her other hand right into the path of Oberon's blade, deflecting it to the side as the white one flowed past her opponent's own wrist in a carefully controlled miss.

And even that miss was a ploy – as Oberon's eyes attempted to track the white blade against the laboratory's off-white tiling, she threw the black sword in his direction. It grazed his cheek as he sloppily dodged, but he ignored the pain in favor of taunting the girl in front of him. "You just lost one of your weapons, and now you're mine!"

The smirk on Yui's face disoriented him slightly, and he stumbled in surprise. Why was she so smug? The only reason her low-level sword had survived a blow from Excaliber was because he had held his strike back to avoid opening himself up to a strike from the other (and he completely ignored the fact that he had failed to do even that). She should be quivering in her shoes right –

Kanshou struck him in the back of the head, the pommel knocking him unconscious before returning to Yui's empty hand. She turned away, her (red and black?) dress swirling epically around her as her two swords vanished with the sound of shattering glass. The only thing that would have made it more epic was a snarky one-liner, and Yui did not disappoint.

"Do you have enough pain, King of Zeroes?"

 **A/N: Yes, it's another Fate/Stay Night omake. In my defense, I had just started watching Fate/Zero when I wrote this chapter. Bet'cha never saw Yui vs. Oberon coming, though. Also, this is the penultimate chapter - just one more, and then this installment is finished.**


	12. Chapter 10

**.**

 **The Consequences of Calling the Cops**

 **[or: Scandal Side-Effects and Swanky Soirées]**

(EP 25)

* * *

In a room full of electronic gadgets, a computer hummed quietly. The humming intensified as its screen lit up, a small virtual pixie beginning to fly around the desktop. _"Let's see, where's the connection to Daddy's phone this time…?"_ she wondered aloud, peering into different folders and (literally) opening up programs to look. Over on the bed, a teenaged boy began stirring as the massive helmet-like device on his head powered off.

He sat up, pulling it off as he did so, and rubbed his eyes before tapping on the wall behind him. "You expecting someone, Sugu?"

 _"No… were you?"_ came the muffled reply.

Kazuto sighed. "Probably some door-to-door salesman or something. I'll go tell them we're not interested." He walked across the house to the front door, stretching as he went. He then opened the door, mouth open to curtly dismiss the intruder, only to freeze when he saw who it was. "Mr. Kikuoka – what an unexpected surprise. What brings you all the way out here tonight?"

"The unexpected awakening of the remaining 300 SAO victims." the government agent told him bluntly. "I believe you suspected this already, but when you expressed interest in Asuna Yuuki, whose player data was consistently shown in the same vicinity as yours during the last days of Aincrad, I took it upon myself to keep abreast of all changes in her status. So imagine my surprise when she wakes up claiming that Sugou Noboyuki was performing secret mind-control experiments in ALFheim, and that you of all people were heavily involved in rescuing her."

He shook his head incredulously. " _Then_ , when we decide to investigate her claims, we find the man himself suffering from psychosomatic paralysis, ranting that he would get revenge on Akihiko Kayaba and 'that brat from the hospital.' Disregarding the whole 'wanting revenge on a dead man' part, the fact that he mentioned you specifically was enough to merit taking you in for questioning. If you would please accompany me to the hospital?"

Kazuto didn't even need to think it over. A free ride to where Asuna was, plus the chance to see Sugou punished for his crimes? No way was he turning that offer down! "Sure, just let me tell my sister so she doesn't worry about where I've gone."

"Didn't you already say you were going to the hospital back before this guy got here?" Suguha interrupted from the hallway, holding out her brother's coat and phone. "I mean, with how obsessed you were with trying to wake her up these past two months, I wouldn't have been surprised if you had rushed to the hospital as soon as you succeeded."

Kikuoka Seijirou raised his eyebrows. "You told your sister of your involvement in this?"

Suguha chuckled. "You've never met my brother when he's got a clear goal in mind, have you? Honestly, his single-mindedness is something else…" She shoved her sibling lightly in the back. "Now go on – you don't wanna leave your girlfriend waiting, do you?"

"Alright, alright, I get it. Sheesh." Kazuto complained good-naturedly as he was herded out the door. "Don't stay up too late, all right?"

"Yes, _Mother_." she shot back with a grin on her face, closing the door before he could think up a suitable retort.

Off to the side, Kikuoka was watching the exchange with a nostalgic smile on his face. _I wish I could have had more times like that with my family,_ he thought sadly, before gesturing toward the idling car and addressing the young man he had come to retrieve. "Shall we?" At Kazuto's nod, the two of them climbed into the vehicle and departed for the hospital.

* * *

The ride there was filled with pensive silence, as Kikuoka (rightly) assumed that Kazuto would be too antsy to answer any questions before the reunion. Their car had hardly stopped in the parking lot before he unbuckled his seatbelt and dashed for the entrance. The police officers stationed there almost stopped him, but when they saw the caseworker from the SAO incident following behind them and shaking his head subtly they stood aside and let him pass.

He took the stairs three at a time, unwilling to wait for the elevator, and the adrenaline boost enabled him to actually make better time than the elevator would have taken. Skidding to a stop in front of Asuna's door, he swiped his keycard to enter.

The light blinked red.

He tried again. Still red.

Frowning, he moved to swipe it a third time – and the door slid open in front of his face. Asuna stood there leaning on her IV stand, having opened the door when she saw him through the peephole after the Witness Protection agents changed the passcode ('for her safety,' they claimed). An instant later, they were oblivious to the world around them as they reenacted their reunion in the birdcage.

When they finally broke apart for air about thirty seconds later, they heard Kikuoka clearing his throat awkwardly. "Now that we're all here, I believe it's time that we take care of business." Without waiting for a response, he strode into the room and sat down in the folding chair next to the bed. "Please, sit down and close the door."

They did so, Asuna leaning on Kazuto for support now. After all, even with electroshock stimulation, there was no way she could have completely avoided muscle atrophy, and getting up to open the door had exhausted her despite the IV stand's support. As they did, the government worker steepled his fingers and narrowed his eyes.

"Now, would you mind telling me why I was just informed that Noboyuki's subordinates thought you were working with us, and that we had somehow acquired Akihiko Kayaba's login information?" He snorted. "Not that I would trust their ramblings – if you had really been a government plant, we would have had to anticipate Kayaba's plan _and_ Noboyuki's plan _and_ know exactly who he would be interested in imprisoning separately, all before our department was even formed. Still, it is our duty to discover the truth behind this. So tell me, why would they think we had Kayaba's login information?"

Kazuto was silent for a few moments, trying to figure out a way to explain without revealing Kayaba's continued existence or lying. Eventually, he decided to answer a question with a question. "Have you ever heard of an artist putting so much time, effort, and heart into their creation that it seems as though it contains a piece of their soul? Kayaba talked about Aincrad that way during his last moments there, and I know that even he would have been against trying to forcibly change the core of another human's personality."

Kikuoka nodded. "I think I see where you're going with this. You believe he left enough of an imprint on the Cardinal System that when it detected you attempting to interfere with Noboyuki, it decided to aid you where it could not directly counteract the Administrator."

Kazuto shrugged. "With how complex he made the error correction software in order to keep Aincrad running for two years, I wouldn't be surprised."

The government worker _humm_ ed in agreement. "Well, thanks to the information we received from miss Asuna earlier, I believe we now have enough evidence to build a successful case against Noboyuki. If you wouldn't mind, though, I would like to meet up again at some point to discuss what actually happened in Aincrad."

"Sure, whatever." Kazuto replied dismissively, anxious for Kikuoka to leave so he could continue his interrupted reunion. The older man, seeing his cue, quickly stood and vacated the room, and Asuna immediately shifted so that she was sitting in Kazuto's lap. Their lips met again, and as they kissed Kazuto almost swore he could see the reflections of a pair of warriors from Aincrad – one with black hair, one with darkish-blonde – watching them through the tall, mirror-like window.

Then he froze in surprise as he realized something. For one thing, the girl's hair was too short for her to be Asuna, and it was more of a honey-blonde than chestnut-blonde. For another, she was holding a pink clamshell tablet – which definitely did not exist in Aincrad. But the last straw, and the one he wondered why he hadn't noticed sooner, was the Pikachu perched on the swordsman's shoulder. Said swordsman mouthed something from the other side that looked suspiciously like _"should we give you guys another moment?"_ , but Asuna had already noticed Kazuto's hesitation and was instantly on the alert. "What's the matter?" she asked, locking eyes with him firmly.

He pointed at the window, only now registering the stalactites, stalagmites, and other rock formations in the background. "Ash and Serena are breaking reality again." Sure enough, the two Pokémon trainers had set Serena's tablet down in a crevice (hiding it from cursory inspection using some rocks) and walked _through_ the window into the hospital room.

"…I gotta say, I wasn't sure that would work." Ash commented as the window rippled and became a window again. "I mean, I know Clemont was able to manually open a connection to the Mirror World to rescue me, but that wasn't nearly as stable a transition as this was."

 _"I told you it would work!"_ Yui piped up from Kazuto's phone. _"After all, it was connected constantly for two years, right? That's plenty of time to self-stabilize!"_

"Wait a minute – are you two saying that you brought _yourselves_ here the same way you were able to log in to SAO and ALFheim?" Kirito questioned, trying to wrap his brain around the concept.

"Not exactly. We just… how did Yui put it again?"

"She said we 'traced the connection through the nearest stable dimensional gateway'." Serena held up a finger to forestall questions. "And before you ask: yes, portals to alternate dimensions are surprisingly common in our world. The one we just came through is located inside a cave full of them."

Kirito closed his eyes and leaned back against the headboard. "Why does that not surprise me?" he groused half-heartedly, rubbing Asuna's back in small circles as he did so. She sighed contentedly, snuggling up against him like an affectionate cat.

Ash chuckled. "Maybe because you've run into us regularly for two years, not counting these past few days? Honestly, with all the shenanigans I get involved in, I'm surprised that I _can_ still get surprised."

Serena, on a whim, leaned over and pecked him on the cheek. "You mean like that?" she asked as his face reddened slightly. Her brow then crinkled slightly. "Now that I think about it, if someone couldn't be surprised at things like that, those things would lose all the extra value that being spontaneous gives them, which would be really sad."

She was interrupted by the sound of Kirito switching on Asuna's bedside lamp. When she and Ash looked at him inquisitively, he shrugged with his free shoulder. "It felt like it was getting a little too dark in here."

Asuna's hand came up to swat him affectionately on that shoulder. "That was terrible, Kir– er, Kazuto."

"Hey, if you want to blame anyone, blame Yui. She's the one who gave me the ability to use dad jokes without penalty…"

Asuna gasped in faux horror, pulling back as if offended. "For shame! Bringing an innocent child into this – your own daughter, no less! What kind of an example do you think you're setting for her at such an impressionable age?" The mirth in her eyes belied her words, though, and she didn't resist when Kazuto drew her back in.

"Then be thankful Ash and Serena didn't bring Silica with them." he teased back, ruffling her hair. "Not only is she 'impressionable,' as you called it, but she'd probably squee so hard when she saw us that the police would think it was an alarm or something."

His eyes then widened, a realization making its way to the front of his mind. "Oh no."

"What?" Asuna asked in concern.

"Now that you're back, there's no way I can keep Agil and Klein from throwing a 'Game Cleared' party, which means there'll be a lot of unfamiliar people in a limited space, and a lot of them will probably want to congratulate me for beating Kayaba, which means a bunch of superficial conversations where I don't actually _know_ the person – and you know how I get in that sort of situation, since you saw it happening at the end of the fishing party, and…"

He was shushed by a finger on his lips. "Back when I was younger, my brother sometimes told me to 'leave tomorrow's problems to tomorrow's you.' I never got what he meant before I met you, but it seems like something you need to hear right now. Besides, now that Ash and Serena can actually come here in person, they can do the same thing they did back then if it gets to be too much for you. If you don't mind, that is." she added, glancing at the two Trainers, who nodded in return.

Kazuto smiled wryly. "And once again, you show why you were such an effective sub-comm– wait, your brother watched _One Punch Man_?"

Asuna was surprised by the sudden change in topic, but did her best to answer his question. "Um, is that the show with the bald guy in the yellow suit and white cape? His friend is, like, a human robot or something? I remember Kouichirou had a poster with those two up on his bedroom wall when we were younger…"

Kazuto chuckled. "You know what, I think I'm gonna get along with your brother just fine. After all, if it wasn't for him, I'd have never met you…"

"Well, it looks like you're about to find out." Ash told them, walking back over to the window hand-in-hand with Serena. "There's somebody coming up the elevator who feels the same way as our friend Clemont when he finds out his little sister Bonnie is safe again, which makes me think it's _your_ older brother. He doesn't know about us, though, so we should probably get going."

 _"On it!"_ Yui piped up from Kazuto's phone, the window rippling to once more display the cave interior. _"I'll let you know when Mommy and Daddy get invited to the party, okay?"_

Serena smiled. "Sure thing, Yui. Be good now, okay?" She turned and leveled a deadpan stare at Kazuto and Asuna, which was ruined by the mischief dancing in her eyes. "And that goes double for you two." The two Trainers then exited the room before either of their friends could respond.

A snort escaped Kazuto's lips as the window became a window once more. "Impertinent wench. What kind of trouble does she expect us to get up to?"

He was answered by a knock on the door. _"Asuna – you in there? Security told me that they changed the lock on your door, but the Visitor Information desk is closed."_

Asuna grew visibly nervous, yet simultaneously excited, at the thought of seeing her brother again for the first time in over two years. Kazuto placed her arm over his shoulders as they stood up, wrapping his around her waist in support. "Don't worry. As a different anime protagonist might say, 'we've got two good legs' – so we ought to use them. No matter what we run into now that we're back in the real world, we're gonna face it together."

* * *

The next few months passed by relatively quickly for them. What with the opening of the SAO Survivors School, which Kazuto suspected was designed to monitor the game's former residents for potential psychological damage, the highly public trial of Sugou Noboyuki, which resulted in ALO being indefinitely suspended, and Asuna's rehab (which, at Yui's suggestion, he attempted to involve Suguha in as well), it took a while for things to settle back down and for people to begin adapting back into 'normal life.'

On top of that, Kazuto had recruited Klein, Agil, and Thinker for the 'World Seed Project' – both to evaluate the safety of Kayaba's peace offering and to help carry it out if they deemed it safe. Thanks to Agil's connections, the Seed was soon uploaded to servers all over the globe, where people could discover for themselves the joy of creating their own virtual world.

As Kayaba had predicted, the surge in popularity this produced was enough to mostly offset the two corporate VRMMO scandals. RECT Progress still had to shut down their Virtual Division, though, and Asuna's father Shouzo decided to retire early so that the administration could have a fresh start.

But even with the VR Division's shutdown, there were enough entrepreneurs playing ALO before its suspension that they were able to band together and start up their own company, which they called Ymir as a homage to the Nordic influences of ALFheim, with the intent of keeping the land of Fairies alive. Once the Seed became public, support for their company began pouring in – both in the form of monetary donations and of partnership offers from those who sought to appeal to casual gamers by connecting all the different Seed Worlds together.

All of these factors compounded together had served to put off any sort of 'game cleared' get-together – but with the announcement from Ymir that an updated version of Aincrad was going to be incorporated into ALFheim at midnight the day after May 16, Agil and Klein decided that they couldn't put it off any longer. As such, at 6:00 PM on the 16th, Asuna and Kazuto found themselves walking down the streets toward Agil's shop, Suguha trailing several steps behind them. They had asked Yui if they should wait for Ash and Serena, but the AI had told them not to worry, and that she had already worked out plans as to how they would get there.

When they arrived (ten minutes ahead of schedule to avoid awkward staring), Kazuto was surprised to see Lisbeth – _no, it's Rika in real life_ he reminded himself – standing inside with an expectant grin on her face. The place already appeared to be packed, causing Kazuto to furrow his brow and glance at his watch. When he had reassured himself that they had not, in fact, become lost on the road of life (or taken the long way around to avoid the bad luck from crossing paths with a black cat, or any other ridiculous explanation like that), his expression changed from one of confusion to suspicion. "Okay, what's the deal? Nobody _ever_ shows up on time to these things, let alone _everybody_ being early…"

Rika stuck her tongue out teasingly. "You two are the guests of honor, so we gave you a later time than everyone else. Now come on – it's rude to keep the audience waiting!" She grabbed Kazuto's wrist and dragged him (and by extension Asuna) to a makeshift stage in the front of the room. The lights dimmed, with the exception of a spotlight focused on the two of them. "All right, everyone! All together now! Three, two, one…"

The room erupted in cheers, most of them slight variations on the phrase _Congratulations on beating SAO, Kirito and Asuna!_ The couple's attention, however, was drawn to the odd one out.

 _"YAY, DADDY AND MOMMY!"_ a small voice yelled from the back of the room near the janitor's closet. Kazuto blinked to make sure he wasn't seeing things – but sure enough, there was their little girl, flanked by Ash and Serena.

 _Wait, how did they…_ he wondered, wide-eyed. _I get how_ they're _here, Agil keeps a spare bathroom mirror in that closet, but what about Yui?_ He didn't get a chance to ask, though, since he and Asuna were almost immediately swarmed by individuals attempting to congratulate them personally.

He managed to make it through those conversations on autopilot, letting his Kirito personality come to the forefront and handle interaction while he himself attempted to solve the puzzle he had just been presented with. The next thing he knew, he was sitting at the bar with a glass of Oolong tea in his hand, Klein – _Ryoutaro, not Klein_ – thumping him heartily on the back. "You know, for someone who claims to be an introvert in real life, you handled that surprisingly well. It almost seemed as if we had never left the game…"

"That's because it wasn't Kazuto talking to all those people." he sighed, swirling his beverage idly and glancing around the room to try and locate Ash and Serena. "I've had something on my mind for a little while now that I need to talk to Asuna about, so I kinda let the side of me that's used to large crowds handle everything."

A smirk grew on the redhead's face, and he elbowed Kazuto in the ribs. "Oh, I see. Planning to finally pop the question IRL, are we? I bet Thinker would be happy to give you advice…" He trailed off, waggling his eyebrows in a teasing manner.

"You're one to talk, Mr. Perpetually-Single." Kazuto's eyes locked onto their targets, sitting over at a shadowed booth in the corner. Asuna was headed in that direction already, so he swallowed the last of his tea and stood up. "It doesn't look like she's talking to anyone right now, so I'm gonna go catch her."

He ignored the incoherent gibberish that resulted from Klein trying to respond to his riposte at the same time as giving him moral support, slipping through the crowd to the table in the back. Before he actually reached the table, though, he was assaulted by a small black-haired missile that latched onto his stomach with the strength of a barnacle. "DADDY!" she yelled happily, nuzzling his shirt and then dragging him over to the seat next to Asuna.

"…But – but _how_?" he questioned as he lifted her into his lap, looking across the table to see Ash smiling wryly.

"Funny story, that…"

* * *

 _You want me to_ _ **what?**_ Mewtwo's eye twitched.

 _"To provide a physical body to a digital intelligence, namely: me."_ Yui piped up from Serena's tablet speaker. _"They don't say anything when they think I can hear, but I know Mommy and Daddy are sad that they can only see me in the virtual world, and I want to be able to surprise them and make them happy! And when I told Uncle Satoshi and Aunt Serena, they brought me here!"_

Mewtwo winced slightly as a wave of pain washed through his mind accompanied by the name _Ambertwo_ , but pushed it aside in favor of addressing Ash. _You thought I could help her with this?_

Ash chuckled mareepishly. "Well, you _did_ manage to clone all those Pokémon back on New Island, and so I figured if anyone would know how to create a human body for her it would be you. After all, her consciousness is stored in the same way a Pokémon is stored inside a Pokéball, so…"

Mewtwo fixed him with a stare. _And there was no one else you could have gone to first?_

"Not unless I wanted to try and find a massive swarm of Unown or something…"

 _No. That is a terrible idea_. Mewtwo reprimanded him, folding his arms. _Why would you even think of something like that?_

"The thing is, back when I was traveling in Johto there was this girl who was convinced that my mom was her mom, and she somehow summoned a giant crystal tower and an Entei using the swarm of Unown in the basement, and –"

Mewtwo silenced Ash with a wave of his hand. _Why do you_ _ **think**_ _I told you it was a terrible idea? I must admit, I did not know you were involved, though…_

Serena cut in from where she was standing next to Ash. "Chances are, if there's some kind of world-threatening event, you'll find Ash right in the thick of it." She ruffled his hair fondly. "I think he even said at one point people were calling him the Chosen One or something…? But as much as I hate seeing him in danger, I've kind of learned to live with it by now."

 _And_ _ **that**_ _is the other thing that bothers me_. Mewtwo stated bluntly. _Back when I erased your memory of New Island, I got the distinct impression that there was no way in this world that you would ever understand the concept of romantic affection, and I almost pitied you for it. I did not, of course, because at that point I considered it beneath my notice – and now I find myself having somehow been_ _ **wrong**_ _. I find this unacceptable, and so my terms are as follows: I assist you in your attempt, and you will help me to discover the flaw in my analysis so that I may correct it._

Ash smiled wryly, intertwining his fingers with Serena's. "Funny story, that…"

* * *

"…Long story short, another Legendary Pokémon now knows that this dimension exists, and he's even willing to try and fashion a real-life body for Pina. I don't know _how_ we managed that, but I bet Silica's gonna be happy."

"And look – I can still go inside the computer without having to use an Amusphere or a NerveGear!" Yui announced happily, her body converting into red energy and swirling into Kazuto's phone the same way a Pokémon would return to its Pokéball. She promptly emerged again in Navi-Pixie form before assuming her regular size on Asuna's lap.

Kazuto raised an eyebrow as a quirk of Ash's wording occurred to him. "Wait, you said _another_. What do you mean by that?"

"Well, since all the portals in Reflection Cave link with alternate dimensions via the Distortion World, Giratina definitely knows about it. Arceus knows, because it created the Pokémon Universe, and since we've experienced a week during the past three months on this side, that means either Dialga or Celebi is probably involved…"

Serena stopped him by laying a hand on his arm. "Remember, he doesn't know what all those names mean – he's just as clueless about our world as we are about his."

"Oh, yeah. Right."

"But you know what we do all have in common?" Asuna interjected. "We're all friends, even family, thanks to our time spent together in Aincrad."

Kazuto chuckled. "And thanks to tonight's ALFheim update, we get to spend even more time together in Aincrad, making new memories with our friends and family." He then snapped his fingers. "Speaking of which, I got the okay from your dad this afternoon, and Klein thinks that's why I came over here. So…" He pulled out a small black box from his pocket and opened it. "You ready to make this official IRL?"

"Of course she is, Daddy!" Yui said, grabbing Asuna's hand with one of hers and sliding the ring onto it with the other before turning to Ash and Serena. "And then it's gonna be your turn next!"

"What's gonna be whose turn next?" a confused voice asked, drawing everyone's attention. They all turned in its direction, only to see Silica blinking and rubbing at her eyes. "Wait a minute – I thought this table was empty…" She kept turning her head back and forth, as if trying to focus on something visible at the corner of her eye, before Serena realized what was happening and relaxed her Notice-Me-Not just the slightest bit.

Silica squeaked in surprise, fumbling her juice box and dropping it on the table. "Eeep! How long have you guys been here?"

"Exactly fourteen minutes and thirty-seven point two six three seconds, mark." Yui informed her helpfully.

The fourteen-year-old backpedaled frantically when she saw Yui snuggled in Asuna's lap. "Ohmygosh, I'm totally interrupting your family time, aren't I? I'm really sorr- hold on a moment, how did Yui get here? I thought she was a program or whatever!"

 _"Ash and Serena._ " Yui's parents deadpanned in unison, as if that explained everything. And, in a way, it did.

Silica looked on the bench next to her, and sure enough, there was Ash waving with an idiotic grin on his face from in the corner, while Serena sat between them rolling her eyes exasperatedly. The former Beast Tamer just buried her head in her arms, pigtails splaying out to either side. "I'm not even gonna ask…" she mumbled, barely intelligible through the table that was smooshed up against her face. Once she had gotten past that stage, though, she perked up. "But it's great that you were able to make it to the party!"

Ash chuckled. "Yeah, except for the part where we got locked in the janitor's closet thanks to Agil. With all the mops and stuff, it was kinda cramped in there…"

Silica's eyes widened. "Wait, you mean – excuse me a minute." She shot up out of her seat and dashed over to where a garish bandana could be seen peeking above the crowd, followed shortly by the sound of a massive facefault.

Agil laughed as he stopped by to refill their water glasses. "Business as usual, I see?" he asked, indicating a loudly protesting Ryoutaro with a jerk of his head. As Asuna accepted her glass with a thankful nod, he noticed the glint on her finger. "And might I be the first to offer congratulations?"

Kazuto smirked. "You _might_ be… or you might not be, and I won't tell you which. But in all seriousness, thanks."

"Hey, no problem." Agil responded, bumping fists with him. "Besides, I may or may not have a vested interest in where you hold your reception – I won't tell you which. And remember: afterparty starts in Yggdrasil City at 11:00 before the big event."

"We'll be there!" Kazuto called after him as he moved away to check on his other customers. "And we'll consider your other recommendation, too." The bartender flashed him a thumbs-up and a grin before addressing the next group just out of earshot.

Further conversation was cut short by the sound of Yui yawning. "Well, I guess that's our cue to leave." Serena stated, scooting out along the bench until she could stand up. "After all, until we figure out how to do it ourselves, Yui has to be the one to activate the portal. But we'll definitely be in ALFheim later, promise."

Kazuto nodded. "All right, see you then."

The two Trainers walked back into the broom closet and shut the door, unintentionally leaving Kazuto and Asuna to the mercy of the crowd once more (and drawing disappointed groans from a slightly tipsy couple who had been just about to appropriate the closet for their own use, but that's less important). The two parents finally realized the implications of their friends' action when Suguha plopped down in front of her brother. "There you are – I've been looking all over for you!"

"Some friends you are…" Kazuto muttered jokingly as he prepared himself for another onslaught of attention. _But in all honesty_ , he thought, _nothing can take away the happiness that comes from just spending time with family and friends._

* * *

Omake: Why PokéAni Doesn't Use VG Logic

* * *

 _Wow, Wulfric was right._ Ash thought as his Greninja faced down Avalugg on the Snowbelle Gym Battlefield. _He said that he would be either my hardest challenge yet or a total pushover, and so far that analysis has been right on the money._ Wulfric's Bergmite hadn't lasted long against Hawlucha, though its use of Hail gave Avalugg a large enough advantage to knock out the wrestler with Avalanche. That was the furthest Wulfric would get against him, though.

 _Let's give him a bit of a surprise,_ he told Greninja via the bond that enabled their transformation. The next time Avalugg attempted to use Avalanche, they synchronized their movements just below transformation-level – and Ash's experience allowed Greninja to replicate the One-Handed Sword Skill Spinning Shield that Kirito had used against Xyrphan during his adventure with Lisbeth.

Wulfric was impressed enough by their technique that when Avalugg was knocked out he wasted no time in Mega-Evolving his Abomasnow. "Go on, show me the burning flame that blazes inside you!" the Gym Leader called out confidently "Do your worst, and see how well you fare against the bond of Mega Evolution!"

Greninja exchanged a glance with Ash. _Should we?_

Ash shrugged. _I mean, he_ _ **did**_ _say to do our worst…_

Greninja held out a hand and began chanting, a series of odd words swirling around him as he did so. _"Ek verpa ein brandr_ … _"_

Wulfric scratched his head. "That's not an attack I recognize. What exactly is he doing?"

"Wait for it…"

 _"…steypa lundr drótt!"_ A massive fireball erupted from Greninja's webbed hand, engulfing Mega Abomasnow in a massive explosion. When the smoke cleared, Abomasnow was down for the count.

The Snowbelle Gym leader stood there silently as the referee announced Ash's victory. "I must admit," he finally said, uncrossing his arms as he did so, "Of all the things I expected, that was not one of them. Congratulations, Ash. You have now earned all 8 badges and are qualified to enter this year's Pokémon League. Out of curiosity, though, who would you have had battle third?"

Ash _humm_ ed in thought. "I dunno, I didn't think about that beforehand. It probably would have been me or Charizard, though."

Wulfric almost facefaulted. First an OP Greninja that could use Flame Burst, and then a Trainer who thought he could match a Mega Abomasnow – just what was the world coming to?

 **A/N: And so we come to the end of ALFheim. It may be a while before I post the next installment (because college), but it's in progress. And this time, it'll be _Kirito_ who's world-jumping - he might even end up meeting with a similarly 'antisocial' character who also dresses in black... Also, Arceus regularly breaks the fourth wall.**

 **I suppose I'll leave you there with those sufficiently enigmatic hints. See you next time!**


	13. Sequel Notice

**A/N:** **As you can probably tell from the title of this 'chapter,' it's not actually a chapter. For those who don't have me on 'author alert' to automatically be notified when I post new stories, be informed that the third main installment of the Tuesday-verse has now been posted.**

 **That is all.**


End file.
